Wednesday, September 10, 2014

IBEcon: My Favorite Econ and Current Events Sites

This week in class I'll share my favorite websites related to Economics and Current Events.  In case you found some of interest, but you didn't write them down I'll list them below:

Marginal Revolution
     This one's my favorite!  The two main authors at this blog are professors at the GMU Arlington campus, just down the street.  The blog reflects the wide array of interests of the authors and includes occasional references to Arlington and Fairfax counties, usually when discussing food and restaurants.

Planet Money
     NPR's economics and finance blog.  If you have the time, subscribe to the Planet Money podcasts.  Their 20-minute podcasts usually come out twice and a week and always focus on interesting and often unusual topics.

FiveThirtyEight
     The blog originally started by Nate Silver, then bought by the New York Times and now part of ESPN's ever-expanding media empire.  Silver established his reputation by making amazingly accurate election predictions using polling data and analysis.  In his move to ESPN, he has expanded the scope of his website beyond politics to include science, lifestyle topics, and -of course- sports.  The emphasis on this site is to rely heavily on data to reach logical conclusions that can help build models to explain and predict future events.

The Upshot
     The gaping hole left by Nate Silver's departure from the NYTimes has been filled by their new blog, The Upshot.  In their own words, "The Upshot presents news, analysis and data visualization about politics and policy. It will focus on the 2014 midterm elections, the state of the economy, upward mobility, health care and education, and occasionally visit sports and culture. The staff of journalists and outside contributors is led by David Leonhardt, a former Washington bureau chief and Pulitzer Prize winner for his columns about economics."

Vox.com
     The recently-started website by former Washington Post whiz-kid Ezra Klein.  From their website: "Vox.com is a general interest news site for the 21st century. Its mission is simple: Explain the News."  They've hired many talented writers away from other sites and have established a site that produces interesting content hourly.

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