Biz/ed Bulletin on Business and Economics
Biz/ed has recently become part of the SOSIG Hub. Libby Miller looks at some of the changes recently made to Biz/ed, and looks at internet resources for academic economists and researchers.
Biz/ed has recently become part of the SOSIG Hub. Libby Miller looks at some of the changes recently made to Biz/ed, and looks at internet resources for academic economists and researchers.
From 1 August Biz/ed is continuing resource discovery for the subject
areas business, economics and management under the auspices of the Social
Science, Business and Law Hub funded by JISC through the Resource
Discovery Network Centre [1].
SOSIG [2] will act as an umbrella to a number of
catalogues including Biz/ed's. Biz/ed will continue to have its own
interface and look and feel, and Biz/ed's records will continue to form
the economics and business sections of the SOSIG hub. However with the
model of devolving resource discovery extended to other subjects that are
covered by the hub, we have found it useful to make some technical,
display-related, and categorisation changes to Biz/ed.
There are two main aspects to these changes: the change from ROADS v1 to
ROADS v2, and the extension of categories to improve access to the
catalogue for academic economists.
The switch to hierarchical browsing has made us think carefully about
the display of the categories, but also the overall shape of the
catalogue. Biz/ed has a strong schools user community because of its
non-catalogue resources, especially the teaching materials, which are
aimed largely at GCSE/A-level. Because the resource Discovery Network is
primarily aimed at higher education and research, it is important that
Biz/ed has sufficient coverage of economics, business and management at
this level.
In the past no resource has been excluded because its content was felt to
contain material of a higher level than that required by schools, and
descriptions are generally appropriate to both levels. However when I
joined Biz/ed in January 1999, coming from an academic economics
background, it was clear after that there were gaps in the catalogue with
respect to the current state of higher education and research in
economics. This is partly because the split between school level economics
and higher level is acute in the subject itself. In particular
mathematical economics does not appear a great deal in A-level syllabi,
but is increasingly important in academia. Therefore to increase the
attractiveness of the catalogue to academic researchers and lecturers and
tutors we have taken the opportunity of moving from ROADS v2 to ROADS v2
to add the following economic categories to the Biz/ed classification
system. (see also the Biz/ed Bulletin in Ariadne Issue 19 [6]
for the business categories added)
| New Dewey Decimal Number | Subject Coverage |
| 330.015195 | Econometrics |
| 330.015196 | Game Theory |
| 330.015197 | Decision Theory |
| 330.015198 | Experimental Economics |
Perhaps the most important of these new subjects is econometrics. This
is a large and growing sector of economics, concerning the theory and
practice of testing economic models using statistical data. Game concerns
the analysis of strategy, and uses statistical theory to model types of
uncertainty. Decision theory uses mathematics and logic to analyse
decision-making. Finally Experimental economics, although not a large
section of the academic discipline, is an interesting and growing part,
and has a substantial presence on the web.
After discussion with university libraries and the subject community, and
the other classification indexes, we decided to place econometrics,
decision theory and game theory under the general heading of 'mathematical
economics', while experimental economics was placed into the catch all
general economics category (together with economic data, Environmental
economics, economic systems and theories, and economic history and
geography).
To illustrate the kinds of resources we are collecting under these
subjects are some descriptions of recent resources added to the catalogue.
For game theory, a useful resource for undergraduate level is Advanced
Decision Theory - Game Theory Lecture Notes [7]. This
is an example of a resource which may be extremely useful to students and
lecturers, but which might not be catalogued, because it is the web
version of undergraduate computer science lecture notes. However the
content is just the same as would be for an undergraduate introductory
game theory course - a detailed technical introduction to game theory.
Another interesting teaching resource for game theory is ComLabGames
[8]. This is a freely downloadable piece of software
that can be used for interactively demonstrating games such as the
prisoner's dilemma. It can be played by many players over a network, and
can be configured by the tutor. At the end of the game it displays payoffs
and results of play. It could be very useful for demonstrating the
principles and format of game theory to undergraduates, and as a practical
demonstration of strategy.
For Decision Theory I have chosen a site that would primarily be useful
for researchers. The Decision Analysis Society website [9]
is a part of INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management
Sciences), an organization of operations researchers and management
scientists. The site includes a huge alphabetical listing of papers and
books on decision theory compiled by a researcher. The listings are
primarily for his own personal use, but this place is a very useful place
to find references on this topic - for example at the start of a
literature review. The site also includes a lexicon of decision making,
and listings for journals, software, employment opportunities, and
research opportunities. This site also demonstrates the close relationship
between operations research and economic decision theory: this is an
management site, but the bibliographic list is also appropriate for
economic decision theory.
For Econometrics we have a 'web book' by Christopher Ferrall, an
Associate Professor at the Economics Department of Queen's University,
Kingston, Ontario, Canada: HyperMetrics: Lecture Notes in Econometrics
[10]. The book contains sections on regression,
multiple regression, and the logit and probit models. A similar web book
for introductory game theory is Game Theory: An Introductory Sketch
[11]. Both would be suitable for use as introductory
undergraduate textbooks or references.
Finally we have the Iowa Electronic Markets [12] as
an example from the experimental economics category The Iowa Electronic
Markets are real-money futures markets in which payoffs depend on economic
and political events such as elections. There is currently a political
market running for the 2000 congressional elections, and non-political
markets in computer share prices and the Microsoft price level. An
example: before the 1996 presidential elections you could buy what were
effectively shares in the presidential nominees; since Clinton won, shares
in Clinton were paid at $1 per share when the result of the election was
known. In the meantime the price of the shares in the nominees could be
studied as reactions to political events. This data is still downloadable.
Although this site is run by the University of Iowa College of Business,
this is equally an example of the sorts of experiments that could be
performed in the name of experimental economics.
A related site is the Election Calculator [13], a
site that uses econometric analysis of GDP and other economic indicators
to predict who 'should' have won (according to their equations) in past US
elections.
Libby Miller
Biz/ed Economics Section Editor
ILRT
University of Bristol
8-10 Berkeley Square
Bristol
BS8 1HH
Email:
libby.miller@bris.ac.uk
Web site: http://www.bized.ac.uk/
Article Title: "Biz/ed Bulletin on Business and Economics"
Author: Libby Miller
Publication Date: 20-Sep-1999
Publication: Ariadne Issue 21
Originating URL: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue21/bized/
Copyright and citation information
File last modified: 23-Sep-1999