Archive-name: econ-resources-faq
Sci-econ-research-archive-name: econ-resources-faq
Last-modified 1993/10/26
Version: 3
RESOURCES FOR ECONOMISTS ON THE INTERNET
Bill Goffe
Dept. of Economics and International Business
University of Southern Mississippi
Hattiesburg, MS 39406
bgoffe@whale.st.usm.edu
October 26, 1993
TABLE OF CONTENTS
* 1. INTRODUCTION
* 2. NEW THIS VERSION
3. INTERNATIONAL, U.S. MACRO, AND U.S. REGIONAL DATA
* A. Economic Bulletin Board (EBB)
* B. EconData
C. New England Electronic Economic Data Center (NEEEDc)
4. OTHER DATA
A. Luxembourg Income Study (LIS)
B. National Archives Center for Electronic Records
C. Social Security Administration (OSS-IS)
+ D. FedWorld
+ E. Public Domain Financial Data
+ F. Census
+ G. EDGAR
5. WORKING PAPER ARCHIVES AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SERVICES
* A. NetEc (BibEc & WoPEc)
* B. Working Paper Archive (Wash. Univ., St. Louis)
+ C. Feminist Economists Discussion Group Archive
6. GOPHERS
* A. Economics Gopher at Sam Houston State University
B. Computational Economics Gopher
C. ClioNet (Cliometric Society)
* D. National Bureau of Economic Research Gopher
E. Academe This Week (Chronicle of Higher Education)
+ F. Washington Univ. at St. Louis Econ. Dept.
+ G. RiceInfo
+ H. University of Michigan Economics Dre
+ I. Communications for a Sustainable Future
+ J. SunSITE
7. UNIVERSITY AND RESEARCH LIBRARY CARD CATALS Aearchibraries in
General
+ B. Library of Congress
8. PROGRAM LIBRARIES
* A. Netlib
B. Statlib
* C. Univ. of Illinois at Chicago Statistical Library
9. EDUCATIONAL SERVICES
* A. Iowa Electronic Markets
10. USENET NEWSGROUPS
* 11. MAILING LISTS
+ 12. USEFUL BOOKS, PROGRAMS, AND RESOURCES ABOUT THE INTERNET
1. INTRODUCTION
This is my third stab at this document. I am very interested
in any corrections, suggestions, omissions, and hints anyone
might ha Hopefully, a refined version will be appearing in
The Journal of Economic Perspectives along with a description of
the Internet and the tools used to access it. Thus, any
suggestions you might have may reach a large audience.
While relatively few economists use the Internet, there is a
surprising amount of very useful information on it. For instance,
there are two very extensive sets of macro data, a bibliography
of some 20,000 working papers in economics, household surveys
* from 21 countries, three interactive electronic markets, 34 maili
* lists and two Usenet newsgroups. By the end of this year, it should
* include the SEC EDGAR database.
I apologize for any crosslistings. However, it appears that
economists use many different lists, so to reach the broadest
audience, crosspostings are unavoidable.
Some of the information is not as complete as I would wish.
Further, some of the resources I have not investigated
thoroughly and I cannot vouch for them. While I catalog many
mailing lists, I have little information about the volume and
types of discussions.
Most of the resources I was able to find deal with the United
States. Leads on information on other countries would be
appreciated.
+ I would like to acknowledge many ple who have commented and
+ made suggestioon previous versions of this document. Without
+ their help, there would be fewer resources listed and the existing
+ descriptions would be more difficult to read.
Notes:
- Items in " " are typed directly as commands.
-nless otherwise stated, FTP means anonymous FTP.
- I give directions for gopher in what I call direct and
indirect methods. Some gopher client software allows you
to "point" at a gopher site (the direct method), while other
software does not, soou have to navigate through
gopherspace (the indirect method). With the indirect
method, you must first find the gopher directory devoted
to what is usually titled "Other Gophers" (generally in the
top or next to top menu).
- Many of the gophers devoted to economics are interconnected;
no mention is made of this below since it would take a lot
of space to say who is connected to whom. The gophers at Sam
Houston State University, the Economics Department at
Washington University in St. Louis and RiceInfo seem to have
the great neof interconnections.
* - For both gophers and anonymous FTP sites, the location is
* given as host:directory. Thus, in the directions for EconData,
* u'll see the FTP site given as info.umd.edu:/info/EconData.
* This means that you do an anonymous ftp to info.umd.edu and
* change to the /info/EconData directory (be sure to preserve
* case when typing).
* - Information about compressed files, converting binary files
* to text so they can be emailed and converted back to binary,
* and locations on gopher software can be found in the section
* titled USEFUL BOOKS, PROGRAMS, AND RESOURCES ABOUT THE INTERNET.
* This document, and its successors, can be found in
* several places. They include, via ftp,
* rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/sci.econ.research and, via
* gopher, at the Economics Working Paper Archive at
* Washington University at St. Louis and the Economics
* Gopher at Sam Houston State University. Finally, I'd be
* happy to send it out via email to all who request it.
2. NEW IN THIS VERSION
+ New resources in this draft are denoted with a + in the first
+ column, while changes to resources metioned previously are denoted
+ with a * in the first column.
3. INTERNATIONAL, U.S. MACRO, AND U.S. REGIONAL DATA
* A. Economic Bulletin Board (EBB)
This service is an outgrowth of a dial-up bulletin board
offered by the U.S. Department of Commerce. It contains
more than 2,000 files from the Departments of Commerce,
Labor and Treasury, the Federal Reserve and other agencies.
The EBB is currently offered on thenrnet in two places.
The first is a telnet interface to the EBB at the Department
of Commerce, and the second is at a library gopher at the
University of Michigan.
EBB at the Commerce Department
* This resource began charging for their services on Oct. 1.
* Charges for Internet telnet access follow.
* Timed Charges:
* Annual subscription fee $45
* Credit for connect charges $20
* 8AM - noon (Eastern) $24/hour
* noon - 6PM $18/hour
* 6PM - 8AM (& holidays, $6/hour
* weekends)
* Flat Fees
* Up to 1 hour/day $250/year
* Up to 4 hours/day $400/year
The current telent interface is basically that used for the dial-
up bulletin board. Thus, one must capture on the information
from the screen or use a bulletin board type download (such
rmit). I have not tried the later and can offer no advice.
To capture all screen data on a Unix system, one can do
"telnet ebb.stat-usa.gov | tee ebb.data"
where tee takes the screen data and places it in the file
ebb.data.
* FTP and gopher access may be available at this time; plans
* were to charge by the amount transferred.
* Limited guest accounts are available, use "gu"s the
* password. You are limited to 20 minutes of connection time
* and not all files are available.
Most information is in four areas: the bulletin system (which
describes how to use the system), the file system (which
contains files), the trade promotion system,and the utilities
system (which sets passwords, terminal types, etc.) Basic
information on the system can be found in the bulletin system
(entered by typing "B") under "3", while a listing of files can
be found in the file listing system (entered by typing "L")
under 17.
Data comes in several formats. Some comes in DOS self
extracting files, some in .PRN (so it can be used in
spreadsheets or software that can import spreadsheet data),
and some in a specialized format.
TELNET: ebb.stat-usa.gov
EBB at the University of Michigan Library Gopher
The University manually downloads files daily from the dial-
up EBB. It is said to contain 700 files; I have no information
on the different numbers of files contained by the two
versions of the EBB. Information on file formats and the
system in general can be found under the heading "Current
Business Statistics" and "EBB and Agency Information and
misc. files." As with the Commerce Department location,
data comes in several different forms. A convenient listing of
all directories for the EBB can be found in a file called
"Contents of the Ulibrary Gopher" at the "University of
Michigan Libraries" (described below).
One good educational use of this gopher is recent press
releases concerning economic statistics. I frequently use
it just before class to check the most recent numbers.
The directory directly above EBB at the University of Michigan
contains a variety of useful information.
TELNET: una.hh.lib.umich.edu (login as "gopher" and move
to /Social Science Resources/Economics)
GOPHER (direct): una.hh.lib.umich.edu /socsci/Economics
GOPHER (indirect): USA/Michigan/University of Michigan
Libraries/Social Science Resources/Economics
* B. EconData
This database, collected by INFORUM, a project building an
inter-industry model of the U.S. economy, processes a wide
variety of macro data and places it in a common format. Data
includes the National Income and Product Accounts, balance
of payments, flow of funds, CPI, PPI, the Penn World Trade
Tables (permission needed), International Financial Statistics
(if your organization is a member of the Inter-University
Consortium for Political and Social Research), blue pages
from the Survey of Current Business, and state and local data
including employment, earnings, GSP and state personal
income.
The data is accessed by programs (only for Pcs) provided by
this project and it can easily be output to ASCII or into a
spreadsheet format. The data is also compressed with pkzip,
and they provide this and similar programs as well.
For introductory information, see "Instruction/contents.doc"
and "Instructions/guide.doc".
The program that retrieves data (PDG) is relatively
* straightforward, but let me add my own experiences. First,
* you may need to change the path to the help files in the
* g.cfg file. Assuming that you're in a directory with one
of the unzipped data files, start the program by typing
"pdg". Then, a return will allow you to start normally.
The command "look" allows one to survey the data in that
file (additional commands are found on the bottom of the
screen that allow you to print the data to the screen or
graph it). One leaves the look command with an escape. To
print the data to an external file in columns, use the
"matty" command. After typing "matty" and the full file
name you choose, you'll be prompted for the series names
that can be obtained with "look". Don't separate series
names with commas and be sure to end the command with a
semicolon. The output of matty lists dates in the first
column, but you'll need to modify the fractions used to
* denote months and quarters. Finally, you can easily plot
* data to the screen to get an approximate idea of what it
* looks like.
TELNET: info.umd.edu (login as "gopher" and move to
/Educational Resources/Economic Data)
GOPHER (direct): info.umd.edu:/Educational
Resources/Economic Data
GOPHER (indirect): USA/Maryland/University of Maryland
/Resources/Economic Data
FTP: info.umd.edu:/info/EconData
C. New England Electronic Economic Data Center (NEEEDc)
This database specializes in data on the New England
economy. It carries all historical data published in the
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's New England Economic
Indicators (some 90 vables from 1969 for all states and
some metropolitan areas) and GSP data for the New England
area from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The data is in
.PRN format, so it can be read directly by Lotus or
Quatro.
FTP: neeedc.umesbs.maine.edu
INFORMATION: Jim Breece (breece@maine.maine.edu)
4. OTHER DATA
A. Luxembourg Income Study (LIS)
This project brings together 66 household surveys from 21
countries into a common database to make studies of
international economic comparisons easier. For instance,
it includes Current Population Surveys from the U.S.,
French Surveys of Income, and a Hungarian Income Study.
The average survey has approximately 9,000 households with
more than 20,000 members. To maintain confidentiality and
restrictions on use, the data remains on the host computer
in Luxembourg and researchers run jobs remotely on that
system through electronic mail. Users must first register
to use the database.
They also have an annual database of 100 macro indicators
available on floppy disks to put the household surveys in
context. This database also contains rules on taxes and
transfers in each country to make international comparison
mengf. The datasets are well documented, and workshops and
newsletters help the researcher to use this complex
database.
INFORMATION: Tim Smeeding (smeeding@suvm.bitnet)
Caroline de Tombeur (eplisjr@luxcep11.bitnet)
B. National Archives Center for Electronic Records
The National Archives has a branch devoted to the storage
of electronic records from many federal entities. Of
interest to economists are records from the Bureaus of the
Census, Economic Analysis, and Labor Statistics, the Civil
Aeronautics Board, Department of Transportation, IRS, SEC,
and Social Security Administration. While the records are
not available over the Internet (at least not yet),
detailed information about them, including a listing of
"data files" and ordering information for the data files
(generally available only on 9-track tape reels or 3480
tape cartridges) are available. Currently, some 6,200 data
files out of more than 14,000 available are listed in a
rapidly growing list. Some of the data files are old,
while some are relatively recent. Some entities have only
a small selectio ta, while for others, the listings
are more complete. Unfortunately, the tapes are
relatively expensive at either $80.75 or $90.00 (depending
upon the medium) with additional tapes at $24.50. One can
hope that a less expensive on-line database is not too far
in the future. Since a comprehensive list of files here is
impossible, the interested researcher should examine
them. Much more information about this service can be
found in the directory listed below.
FTP: ftp.cu.nih.gov:/NARA_ELECTRONIC
Directions: anonymous FTP, but press
the return key for the password
C. Social Security Administration (S-IS)
The Social Security Administration Office Support System
Information Server (OSS-IS) recently has placed their
internal system on the Internet as an experiment. Data
includes monthly benefits, current operating statistics,
history of benefits paid and income datothe aged. Key
files are "index" which describes the files available,
and "orsindex_txt," which describes files from the SSA's
Office of Research and Statistics, which are likely to be
of the most interest for economists. Using these files,
one can fairly quickly locate the desired data.
The e-mail interface comes from Netlib, so an introduction
can be obtained by sending e-mail to the address listed
below with "send index" in the body of the message. For
FTP, the files "index" and "orsindex_txt" are available in
the "pub" directory.
E-MAIL: info@ssa.gov
FTP: soaf1.ssa.gov:/pub
INFORMATION: info@ssa.gov
+ D. FedWorld
+
+ This site provides an entry-way from the Internet to many
+ U.S. Government Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) that one
+ usually contacts via a phone and modem. While there is
+ relatively little material directly related to economics
+ that cannot be obtained more directly, it is a useful
+ connection to many databases. Access is only through telnet.
+
+ TELNET: fedworld.gov (new address; the old one is fedworld.doc.gov)
+ E. Public Domain Financial Data
+
+ This site allows those with financial data they would like
+ to share to place it at a common site. Thus, some caution
+ might be advised since the data may not be "official."
+ Details about this site can be found in the README file
+ and a list of the extensive set of files at this site can
+ be found in the file named "ls-lR".
+
+ FTP: dg-rtp.dg.com:/pub/misc.invest
+ F. Census
+
+ A common site for U.S. and some Canadian Census
+ information is located at this gopher. This gopher
+ provides links to other gophers that actually contain the
+ data. The material is not coordinated, so some searching
+ may be in order. I was particularly impressed with the
+ collection at the University of Missouri - they have data
+ for all U.S. counties and cities.
+
+ GOPHER (direct): riceinfo.rice.edu:/Information
+ by Subject Area/Census
+ GOPHER (indirect): USA/Texas/RiceInfo
+ G. EDGAR
+
+ This database, an expanding one, covers fillings by U.S.
+ public compan de to the SEC. It covers such things as
+ 10K, 10Q, annual, and quarterly reports. In all, the SEC
+ receives 10 million pages a year of such data. Plans are
+ for 3,000 companies to file electronically into this
+ database by the end of this year, with all 15,000 companies
+ required to file with the SEC eventually required to file
+ into EDGAR.
+
+ Currently, this database is available through Mead Data in
+ either inconvenient locations or at very considerable
+ expense. By the end of this year (according to the New York
+ Times), it will be available at no cost over the Internet.
+ This service will be provided and funded by the NSF, the
+ NYU Stern School of Business, and Internet Multicasting
+ Service, run by Carl Malamud, an economist at the Board of
+ Governors.
+
+ While not yet available, such a resource stands to be an
+ extremely valuable resource for some economists. As more
+ information becomes available, I'll report it here.
5. WORKING PAPER ARCHIVES AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SERVICES
* A. NetEc
This gopher site has two parts: BibEc, a bibliography of
working papers in economics, and WoPEc, an electronic
collection of working paper. BibEc includes some 20,000
entries from 243 different working papers series. These
series include those major of major universities and
research institutions. Coverage dates from 1988, with the
exception of NBER working papers (all are cove), D
from 1981, and the Centre for Economic Policy Research in
London from 1991. Searches can be made by keywords. This is
one of the most valuable resources for economists on the
* Internet. Fethy Mili, a librarian at the University of
* Montreal, is to be commended for entering the data, as is
* Thomas Krichel, for making it available.
WoPEc contains a collection of working papers, which can be
* retrieved electronically. All are Unix compressed PostScript
* files.
* Finally, the FTP site has the Backus and Kohoe data from
* the AER, '92 (see the pub/NetEc/DatEc directory).
* TELNET netec.mcc.ac.uk (login as "netec" and change to
"Economics")
GOPHER (direct): uts.mcc.ac.uk:/Economics
GOPHER (indirect): Europe/United Kingdom/University of
Manchester/Economics/NetEc
* FTP: netec.mcc.ac.uk
* INFORMATION: netec@uts.mcc.ac.uk
* B. Working Paper Archive (econ-wp)
This electronic archive of working papers in ecmics is
set up by the Economics Department of Washington University
in St. Louis. It uses software developed at Los Alamos
National Laboratory, where literally thousands of working
papers in physics are stored. This archive is best accessed
* through gopher, although email and FTP access is possible as
* well. Papers are grouped in 21 subject areas with abstracts
and different methods of searching for papers are available.
* Papers may be submitted in any format via e-mail and binary
* files can be submitted via FTP. Currently, there are relatively
few papers in the archive, but its ease of use should encourage
more entries.
The parent gopher, the gopher of the Economics Department of
Washington University at St. Louis, contains a wealth of
* interesting material. It is the next to last entry on econ-wp's
menu.
TELNET: econwpa.wustl.edu (login as "gopher")
GOPHER (direct): econwpa.wustl.edu
* GOPHER (indirect): USA/Missouri/Washington University -
St. Louis/Washington University in
St. Louis Departmental Gopher Servers
/Economics Department/Economics
Working Paper Archive
EMAIL: econ-wp@econwpa.wustl.edu
Directions: in the subject of the letter,
"help" will obtain introductortion
+ C. Feminist Economists Discussion Group Archive
+
+ The mailing list of this group, described below, has an
+ archive of working papers, bibliographies and old
+ discussions. It is reached only via email. For an index of
+ material, send email to the listed site with "index
+ femecon-l" in the body of the letter, while "get femecon-l
+ guide", sent the same way, will list the services
+ available. Finally, "help" will cause a general guide to
+ using listserv to be sent to you.
+
+ EMAIL: listserv@bucknell.edu
6. GOPHERS
* A. Economics Gopher at Sam Houston State University
This gopher contains a variety of material that might be
useful for teaching, such as summaries of the 1990 Census,
the proposed U.S. budget for 1994, and the CIA World
Factbook. Further, it contains an extensive of connections to
* data sources and in particular to all other known economics
* gophers. As a result, it is THE gopher one should search first.
* Itso includes a list of economists and their email addresses.
* Finally, it has a very extensive collection of TeX information.
GOPHER (direct): niord.shsu.edu:/Economics
GOPHER (indirect): USA/Texas/Sam Houston State
University/Economics
B. Computational Economics Gopher
This gopher is affiliated with the journal Computational
Economics. It contains connections to other economics
gophers, information on a few books and some working
papers. It also contains information on submitting papers
electronically to the journal.
GOPHER (direct): gopher.sara.nl:/Computational Economics
GOPHER (indirect): Europe/Netherlands/SARA/
Computational Economics
C. ClioNet
Sponsored by the Cliometric Society, this gopher contains
information of interest to economic historians. It features an
electronic directory of the memberships of a variety of business
and economic history organizations. It also contains a
collection of more than 50 course syllabi from economic history
courses, abstracts from Cliometric sessions at ASSA meetings, a
list of papers presented at Cliometrics Conferences (1961-1993),
and a growing set of historical data series. Early in 1993, the
Society plans to create an expanded server with multiple topical
listservs, "real time" conferences and expanded data sets. Thi
seer will offer spial concentration on issues related to the
historical economic impact on glal change. (Sam Williamson,
who runs ClioNet, kindly provided this description.)
TELNET: clionet.cas.muohio.edu (login as "gopher")
GOPHER (direct): clionet.cas.muohio.edu
INFORMATION: lliamson
(shwillia@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu)
* D. National Bureau of Economic Research Gopher
Currently, this gopher contains several things of
* interest: the Penn World Trade Tables (versions 5 and
* 5.5), the Survey of Consumer Finance (which will fit on
* three floppies), trade and immigration data from Abowd and
* Freeman, and a list of NBER working papers and reprints
(which must first be uudecoded then uncompressed; the
ultimate size is some 2.5 megabytes). The later is also
available at BibEc.
One can only hope that someday NBER working papers will be
* available here or at another working paper archive.
TELNET: nber.harvard.edu (login as "gopher")
GOPHER (direct): nber.harvard.edu
FTP: nber.harvard.edu:/pub/nber
E. Academe This Week
This electronic version of the Chronicle of Higher
Education is available via gopher. Perhaps the most useful
item is the full listings of all job advertisements from
the Chronicle, but it also summarizes the articles in the
print version, and contains various miscellaneous items.
GOPHER (direct): chronicle.merit.edu
GOPHER (indirect): USA/General (also directly on more
than 60 university gophers)
+ F. Washington Univ. at St. Louis Econ. Dept.
+
+ This gopher is closely tied to the Working Paper Archive
+ at Washington Univ. It contains a number of links to other
+ useful gophers, both economic and of interest to economists,
+ such as the Federal Register, archives of mailing lists on
+ SAS and statistics, access to the UIC Stat archives (described
+ below) and many Internet resources.
+
+ GOPHER (direct): wuecon.wustl.edu port 671
+ GOPHER (indirect): USA/Missouri/Washington University -
+ St. Louis/Washington University in
+ St. Louis Departmental Gopher Servers
+ /Economics Department/Economics
+ G. RiceInfo
+
+ This gopher is part of a project to link together gopher materials
+ in a number of subject areas. One area of interest to economists
+ is a section titled "Economics and Business". While many other
+ economic gophers list roughly the same information, this may be
+ of interest. Note that this same gopher has substantial Census
+ information listed in another area (and described above).
+
+ GOPHER (direct): riceinfo.rice.edu:/Information
+ by Subject Area/Economics and Business
+ GOPHER (indirect): USA/Texas/RiceInfo
+ H. University of Michigan Economics Department
+
+ This gopher is run by Hal Varian and Jeff MacKie-Mason and
+ it contains a variety of information, such as addresses of
+ economists (including email ones), some bibliographies,
+ data (particularly Dow-Jones and the U.S. Dept. of
+ Agriculture), errata to some Varian books and working
+ papers on the economics of the Internet.
+
+ GOPHER (direct): gopher.econ.lsa.umich.edu
+ GOPHER (indirect): USA/Michigan/University of Michigan
+ Libraries/Other Gophers/University
+ of Michigan/Economics Department
+ I. Communications foa Sustainable Future
+
+ This gopher contains two directories that might be of
+ interest: Post-Keynesian Thought and Economic Forum.
+ The former contains material of interest to researchers
+ in that field and the later is more general, but in the
+ general theme of this gopher. It contains a directory
+ titled "Dollars-and-Sense", but it is currently empty.
+
+ GOPHER (direct): csf.colorado.edu
+ GOPHER (indirect): USA/Colorado/Communications for a
+ Sustainable Future
+ J. SunSITE
+ This site (sponsored in part by Sun Microsystems) contains
+ current government documents that might be useful for policy
+ analysis. Examples include information on NAFTA, the
+ Administration's health care plan, White House Press Releases,
+ reinventing government, and the proposed federal budget. Most
+ of this material will be found in "Sunsite Archives" and others
+ in "US and World Politics", which is in "Sunsite Archives".
+
+ GOPHER (direct): sunsite.oit.unc.edu
+ GOPHER (indirect): USA/North Carolina/University of North
+ Carolina at Chapel Hill (Ogphre/SUNsite
+ archives)
+ TELNET: sunsite.oit.unc.edu (login as "gopher"; you may need
+ to supply your terminal type)
7. UNIVERSITY AND RESEARCH LIBRARY CARD CATALOGS
* A. Research Libraries in General
The most current list of libraries accessible over the Internet
* is maintained by Billy Barron (who started it), Marie-Christine
* Mahe, Lou Rosenfeld and Barry Bouwsma. It lists roughly 450
such libraries.
Note that many libraries can also be reached via gopher (typically
under a title like "Libraries"). The following files describe how
the libraries can be reached via telnet and the type of indexing
software they use.
* FTP: ftp.utdallas.edu:/pub/gopher/Libraries (see files "About-
* Library-Guide" and "Instructions" and directory "by.place")
* GOPHER (direct): gopher.utdallas.edu:/Library On-Line Catalogs
* GOPHER (indirect): USA/Texas/University of Texas - Dallas
+ B. Library of Congress
+
+ The Library of Congress has set up a gopher that includes
+ a wealth of information, which includes their card
+ catalog. Theysf tensive set of links to
+ other resources (the economics oriented ones are generally
+ described elsewhere here) and substantial information on
+ the U.S. Government, including Congress. It _appears_ one
+ can ushr photocopy service long distance.
+
+ GOPHER (direct): marvel.loc.gov
+ GOPHER (indirect): USA/Washington DC/Library of Congress
+ TELNET: marvel.loc.gov (login as "gopher")
8. PROGRAM LIBRARIES
* A. Netlib
Netlib is a numerical software library with approximately 50
megabytes of code. The routines, mostly in Fortran, are
generally of high quality (many were developed at U.S.
national labs or by professional numerical analysts). Packages
include Linpack, Eispack, and their new successor, Lapack.
* Netlib is available via e-mail and FTP and even on some
* economics gophers. For introductory material on Netlib,
use the e-mail method by writing "send index" in the body
of your message addressed to one of the sites listed
below. You will receive an introduction to Netlib and its
libraries and how to obtain routines from them.
GOPHER: wuecon.wustl.edu (described above)
niord.shsud/ftGeways to Economics Information
(described above)
FTP:
* netlib2.cs.utk.edu (U.S.)
research.att.com:/netlib (U.S.)
unix.hensa.ac.uk:/pub/netlib (Europe)
draci.cs.uow.edu.au:/netlib (Pacific)
E-MAIL:
netlib@ornl.gov (U.S.)
netlib@research.att.com (U.S.)
netlib@unix.hensa.ac.uk (Europe)
netlib@nac.no (Europe)
netlib@draci.cs.uow.edu.au (Pacific)
B. Statlib
Statlib is a system similar to Netlib (in fact, ises
roughly the same software) for statistical software. Major
holding include algorithms from Applied Statistics,
numerous classic datasets (although few are economic),
software for Minitab and S, and a variety of other
software under a heading labeled "general."
For the email interface, send the phrase "send index" in
the body of your message.
E-MAIL: statlib@lib.stat.cmu.edu
GOPHER (direct): lib.stat.cmu.edu
GOPHER (indirect): USA/Pennsylvania/Statlib (also listed
directly on some gophers)
FTP: lib.stat.cmu.edu
* C. University of Illinois at Chicago Statistical Library
* (UICSTAT)
This statistics library contains a variety of software
(much of it in SAS), but it lacks an up to date inx,
* making searching it a bit difficult. However, an index
* can be reached at the Washington Univ. Economics Gopher
* (described above) undere heading "UIC Stat Archive"
* and files can be transferred from there as well.
* FTP: uicvm.cc.uic.edu:/uicvm
Directions: must do a "cd" to uicmv
before a directory listing is shown
* GOPHER: via Washington Univ. at St. Louis Econ. Dept.
* (described above)
* INFORMATION: Barry Grau (u42054@uicvm.cc.uic.edu)
9. EDUCATIONAL SERVICES
* A. Iowa Electronic Markets
This service is run by the Accounting and Economics
Departments of the University of Iowa. It currently
consists of three electronic exchanges: the Iowa Earnings
Market (which trades contracts on the EPS of five
corporations), the Iowa Economic Indicators Market (which
trades contracts on the CPI and the US$/Mexican peso
* exchange rate), and one on the passage of NAFTA. In the
past, these departments ran the well known 1992 Iowa
Political Stock Market, which traded contracts based on
the outcoohe 1 Printi Election. The
liquidation value of all contracts is determined by the
value of the underlying fundamental on a set date.
This excellent teaching tool is open only to university
and college staff, faculty and students. While the
purpose is education and research, trades require actual
money (f $5 to $500 may be invested). The developers
feel that by using real money for trades, there is an
increased motivation to learn about the underlying
fundamentals. There are no commissions or fees and
trading is continuous.
FTP: umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu:/pub/iem/trman.txt (Trader's Manual)
" " /q&a.txt (Short Introduction)
EMAIL: iem@scout-po.biz.uiowa.edu
Directions: mail addressed here will
send the Trader's Manual to you.
10. USENET NEWSGROUPS
* Usenet is a decentralized discussion system running on
tens of thousands of cooperating computers around the world
(much of the traffic runs over the Internet). It covers
almost 2,000 subjects in areas called newsgroups. The
estimated number of readers ranges in the low millions and
traffic each day is approaching 50 megabytes. Some mailing
lists "mirror" Usenet newsgroups and vice-versa.
In many ways, Usenet has it own culture and the new user is
wise to read carefully before posting messages. The
newsgroups news.announce.newusers and
news.newusers.questions are for those new to Usenet. Since
it runs on a variety of systems, consult your local site for
information on how to access it.
Newsgroup Topic comp.soft-sys.spss
comp.soft-sys.sas comp.soft-sys.shazam
sci.stat.edu Statistics and Edu (these groups
sci.stat.math Statistics and Math | are new and may
sci.stat.consult Statistics and | be hard to find)
sci.math.stat Statistics Discussion (may be eliminated
due to the new
sci.stat groups)
sci.op-research Operations Research
sci.econ.research in Economics (Moderated)
sci.econ Discussions in Economics (often
dominated by current political
economy questions; a good place for
economic education if you're
patient)
*11.MAILING LISTS
[ Mailing lists work as follows. Software on a computer run by
the organizer (or moderator) of the list sends mail to all
members of the list when it receives mail. For obvious
reasons, the term mail exploder is sometimes used for such
software. On some lists, the moderator will approve mail to
be sent to all list members. Thus, to send mail to all
members, you need only write to one address: the list
address.
+ When using a mailing list, please follow "netiquette:"
+ * Use a meaningful subject line. A subject of "help",
+ particularly when received by those on more than one
+ list, is not likely to elicit much of a response.
+ * If you're responding to a previous post, quote accordingly,
+ but judiciously. This helps put your comments in context,
+ yet avoids messages that are too long.
+ * Enclose a short note (or "signature") at the bottom with at
+ least your email address. Some mailing systems mangle the
+ information in the head with your address.
+ * If you have a response, consider responding directly via
+ email if you think no one on the list will be interested.
+ * Watch your temper. Email sometimes makes tempers flare. If
+ you think you should wait or tone down your note, you most
+ likely should.
While not part of netiquette, the value of mailing lists
should be approached like other many other sources of
information, such as a newspaper or a journal. Much of the
material may not be of interest, but occasionally something
very useful may cross your path.
###################################################################
# Note that in ALL cases, you subscribe and unsubscribe from a #
# list NOT by sending e-mail to the list itself (which means it #
# goes to ALL the members of the list), but to some special #
# address that deals with subscriptions. Sending mail to the #
# list itself marks you as a novice who hasn't taken time to #
# carefully read directions. It also irritates list members #
# (numbering into the hundreds) who receive useless mail. One #
# hint: when subscribing to a list, you'll receive information #
# on how to unsubscribe. Keep it and use it. #
###################################################################
The following is a list of e-mail discussion groups. I have
organized the following mailing lists around the type of
software (listserv, majordomo, mailserv, mailbase and
Internet-style) used to run them so that directions can be
put in one place.
In general, I know little about these lists other than the
fact that they exist (in fact, this list is basically an
edited sion of the e-mail I received in acknowledgment
when I subscribed to the lists). Traffic varies; in fact,
on some, it is very close to zero and on others, it vas bstantially.
Where I do know something more, I've added
it beneath the name of the list and its address.
LISTSERV
To subscribe to a list run by listserv, send an e-mail
message to LISTSERV@wherever, _NOT_ to the list itself. If
you send mail to the list itself, it will be sent in turn to
all members of the list. This, obviously, should be reserved
for messages you want all members of the list read and
potentially respond to.
For example, to subscribe tt CARECON, you'd send
e-mail to LISTSERV@YORKVM1.BITNET (or
LISTSERV@VM1.YORKU.CA).
In the body of your e-mail message, you should write the one
line message:
subscribe CARECON your name
Note that your name is typically your first and last name.
To cancel a subscription, use signoff list where list is the
name of the list. Again, e-mail should be sent to listserv
at the site that houses the list. Finally, help on these and
* other commands can be obtained by sending a one line message
* with "help" in it.
Messages to the list itself should be sent to
CARECON@YORKVM1.BITNET, for example. Any such message will
be sent to all members of the list.
List of the Society of Computational Economics
CSEMLIST@HASARA11.BITNET
Has a number of announcements of meetings and some
calls for papers.
List of the Faculty of Economics, University of Amsterdam, NL.
CORRYFEE@HASARA11.BITNET
Caribbean Economy
CARECON@YORKVM1.BITNET (or @VM1.YORKU.CA)
Research in Economic Education
ECONED-L@UTDALLAS.BITNET (or @VM.UTDALLAS.EDU)
A discussion of teaching and research in economic history
ECONHIST@MIAMIU.BITNET (or @MIAMIU.ACS.MUOHIO.EDU)
Discussao sobre economia brasileira
ECONOM-L@BRUFSC.BITNET
The Electronic Journal of Finance
FINANCE@TEMPLEVM.BITNET (or @VM.TEMPLE.EDU)
Economic Nonlinear Dynamics List
NONLIN-L@NIHLIST.BITNET (or @LIST.NIH.GOV)
Workshop on Information Systems Economics
WISE@UICVM.BITNET (or @UICVM.CC.UIC.EDU)
Eastern Europe Business Network
E-EUROPE@PUCC.BITNET (or @PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU)
Post-Keynesian Thought
pkt@csf.colorado.edu.
trade@csf.colorado.edu.
Community and Rural Economic Development Interests
URALDEV@KSUVM.BITNET (or @KSUVM.KSU.EDU)
Economic Problems in Less Developed Countries
ECONOMY@TECMTYVM.BITNET (or @TECMTYVM.MTY.ITESM.MX)
Political Economy
Pol-Econ@SHSU.BITNET (or @SHSU.edu)
* Discussions from Usenet's sci.econ.research are
* "gatewayed" to this group.
Labor Economics
LABOR@SHSU.BITNET (or @SHSU.edu)
Gophers devoted on Economics
Egopher@SHSU.BITNET (or@SHSU.edu)
Business Libraries Discussion List
BUSLIB-L@IDBSU.BITNET
Traffic is said to be heavy.
Regional Science Information Exchange
REGSC-L@WVNVM.BITNET
* Feminist Economics Discussion List
* femecon-l@bucknell.edu.
* SAS Discussion
* SAS-L@UGA.BITNET (or @UGA.CC.UGA.EDU)
* A high volume list that would appear
* to be quite useful to SAS users.
* SAS Public Access Consortium (deals with Census data)
* SASPAC-L@UMSLVMA.BITNET (or @UMSLVMA.UMSL.EDU)
* PEN-L (Progressive Economists Network)
* PEN-L@USCVM.BITNET (or @VM.USC.EDU)
* MEMSNET (Mineral Economics and Mgmt Society)
* LISTSERV@UABDPO.BITNET (or @UABDPO.DPO.UAB.EDU)
* Net-Happenings
* net-happenings@is.internic.net
* While not related to economics, this list is a good
* description to what is happening on the Internet. I
* came across some items on this list here.
MAJORDOMO
Majordomo is another program that organizes mailing lists.
* Commands for subscribing and unsubscribing are similar to
* those used with a listserv except that thees n given
* at the end of the subscription line. Further, rather than sending
e-mail to listserv at the site that houses the list, it
should be sent to majordomo@csn.org.
Local Economic Development
econ-dev@csn.org
A rather philosophical list with fairly heavy traffic.
Texts prepared by the Brazilian Institute of Social
and Economic Analyses
ibase-texts-l@ibase.br
* RISKNet - Discussion of Risk and Insurance issues.
* RISKnet@bongo.cc.utexas.edu
MAILSERV
When using a mailserv, requests for a subscription or canceling a
subscription should be sent to mailserv@wherever. To subscribe, write
subscribe list
in the body of your note where list is the name of the list
you wish to subscribe to. To cancel a subscription, use
unsubscribe list
International Political Economy
ipe@csf.colorado.edu
MAILBASE
When using a mailbase, send your e-mail to mailbase@wherever and use
join list your name
in the body of the text to join a list, and use
leave list
to c a scrii. CTentre for Computing in Economics list for academic
economists
cti-econ@mailbase.ac.uk
* Economic History E-mail Conference
* HISTORY-ECON@MAILBASE.AC.UK
* Experimental Economics
* ECONOMICS-EXPERIMENTAL@MAILBASE.AC.UK
INTERNET STYLE
With Internet style lists, one sends requests to sign up and
leave a list to the list maintainer. Simply add the suffix
* "-request the list name and e-mail it.
Teaching of Economics (not research in economic education)
tch-econ@vax1.elon.edu
+ Communications Privatization
+ com-priv@psi.com
+ This list discusses issues concerning the privatization of
+ the Internet. This is an area in which economists might have
+ a substantial impact.
+ 12. USEFUL BOOKS, PROGRAMS, AND RESOURCES ABOUT THE INTERNET
+ A. Books
+
+ "The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog," Ed Krol,
+ O'Reilly and Associates (1-800-998-9938), Sebastopol CA,
+ ISBN 1-56592-025-2, $24.95, 376 pages. This may be the most
+ complete book on the Internet. The resource section in the
+ back is quite useful. Highly recommended. Can be found in
+ many bookstores.
+
+ "The Internet Companion," Tracy LaQuey with Jeanne C. Ryer,
+ Addison-Wesley, Reading MA, ISBN 0-201-62224-6, $10.95 196
+ pages. This lighter introduction to the Internet assumes less
+ than Krol. Can also be found in many bookstores.
+
+ "The Internet Guide for New Users," Daniel Dern, McGraw
+ Hill,ISBN 0-07-016511-4, $27.95, 570 pages. I have not read
+ this new book, but have seen generally positive reviews of it.
+ Since Dern is the editor of Internet World magazine, it should
+ be knowledgeable. Given its length, it may be more mplete
+ than Krol.
+
+ "Navigating the Internet," Richard Smith and Mark Gibbs,
+ SAMS Publishing, ISBN 0-672-30362-0. This is another book I
+ have not see, but I have read positive reviews about it.
+ The authors have considerable Internet experience.
+
+ "The Internet Passport: NorthWestNet's Guide to Our World Online,"
+ Jonathan Kochmer and NorthWestNet, NorthWestNet, $29.95, 515 pages.
+ Once again, I have not read this book but have read positive reviews
+ concerning it.
+
+
+ B. Software
+
+ Gopher client software
+
+ Gopher is a very popular tool on the Internet and is much
+ more efficient than accessing gopher sites with telnet.
+ Further, file transfer is much easier with client software.
+ Packages for many different hosts can be found here.
+
+ FTP: boombox.micro.umn.edu:/pub/gopher.
+
+
+ uuencode/uudecode
+
+ This pair of programs are very useful when used in conjunction
+ with email. Uuencode takes a binary file (such as a word
+ processing file or a program) and converts it to text so that
+ it can be emailed. Uudecode than converts it back to binary.
+ Using this pair of programs, researchers can collaborate by
+ emailing binary data or word processing files. If one host
+ is an IBM mainframe, be sure to use the -x option.
+
+ FTP: ftp.shsu.edu:/tex-archives/archive-tools/uue
+ GOPHER: Sam Houston State Economics (described above):
+ /Network Are Tools/uue
+
+
+ gzip:
+ This new program can uncompress many files (note that this
+ is typically denoted by a .Z suffix) found on the Internet.
+ More information on this topic can be found below in the
+ document by David Lemson.
+
+ FTP: ftp.shsu.edu:/tex-archive/tools/info-zip
+ GOPHER: Sam Houston State Economics (described above):
+ /Network Archive Tools/gzip
+
+
+ C. Resources
+
+ Scott Yanoff's "Internet Services List"
+
+ Scott Yanoff produces a list of interesting resources on
+ the Internet. While few of them are economics (and those
+ that are covered above) many are quite interesting
+ and useful. One I find particularly interesting is the
+ University of Illinois weather gopher -- you can find
+ weather forecasts for any part of the country. Another
+ interesting resource is books.com, a bookstore on the
+ Internet. For those that live in rather small towns like
+ me, this is a very valuable service.
+
+ Yanoff's list is well worth lookingor those new
+ to the Internet.
+
+ FTP: csd4.csd.uwm.edu:/pub/inet.services.txt
+
+
+ John December's "Information Sources: the Internet
+ and Computer-Mediated Communication"
+
+ This document has a broader concept than Yanoff's;
+ rather than listing just resources, December lists a
+ number of documents as well, such as electronic guides
+ to the Internet, and software sites. The breadth is quite
+ remarkable. Like Yanoff's list, those new to the Internet
+ will find it quite useful.
+
+ FTP: ftp.rpi.e/pub/communications/internet-cmc.txt
+
+
+ File Compression, Archiving, and Text<->Binary Formats:
+
+ This document, by David Lemson (lemson@uiuc.edu) details
+ the numerous methods of file compression used on the
+ Internet and elsewhere.
+
+ FTP: ftp.cso.uiuc.edu:/doc/pcnet/compression.
+ 13. Non-Internet Resources
+
+ A. Introduction
+
+ While this document is primarily about resources on the Internet
+ of interest to economists, there are several resources not on the
+ Internet that might be of interest. I hasten to add that I have
+ not tried any of these and am only reporting what I have read
+ elsewhere.
+
+ B. Federal Reserve Bank Bulletin Boards
+
+ Dallas 214) 0169
+ neapos (612) 340-2489
+ St. Louis (314) 62124
+ I understand that the St. Louis Fed has a wealth of historical
+ data (including money data, obviously), while the Minneapolis
+ Fed has FOMC minutes, and speeches and testimony of Fed officials.
+
+ C. Electronic JEL Index
+
+ I understand that though CompuServe's Knowledge Index and
+ IQuest (they offer a number of sometimes overlapping databases),
+ the Economic Literature Index is available after hours. It is
+ available during working hours through Dialog, but it is
+ quite expensive. One hopes that someday membership in the AEA
+ will privileges and members won't have to pay for access
+ to this databsase.
End of Document