Resources
SOME USEFUL RESOURCES FOR Ph.D. STUDENTS
Last update: August 9, 2024.
On Programming:
MATLAB Tutorial. Html version here.
Stata Tutorial from UCLA's Institute for Digital Research and Education.
R Tutorial (more here).
Coursera's data analysis courses.
Ziena's KNITRO student's edition, a good solver for non-linear optimization.
Three open-source alternatives to MATLAB: Octave, Freemat, and Scilab (here is an old post discussing this).
Coding Glossary Resources to Learn Programming for Kids (thanks to Dylan and his father!).
A Beginner’s Glossary of Coding and Programming Terms (thanks to Willow and her mom, Annie, and good luck to Willow in STEM Summer Camp!)
Coding Websites and Apps for Students (thanks to Ethan and his grandmother, Annie, and congrats to Ethan on his programming merit badge with the Boy Scouts!). And yes: Learning to code is like learning a foreign language.
On Computer Codes:
Aviv Nevo's MATLAB code to estimate Random Coefficients Logit Model using the nested fixed point algorithm (it replicates the estimations in his Practitioner's Guide paper). These codes are for teaching purposes; they work well with Aviv's cereal data but you may want to check them for other applications. Other versions of Aviv's codes can be found in Eric Rasmusen's web pages.
Jean-Pierre Dubé's MATLAB code for BLP’s GMM estimator of the Random Coefficients Logit Model using the MPEC algorithm.
Chris Conlon's Github code. Also, Chris' Python BLP package with examples using the datasets by BLP (1995) and Nevo (2001).
Victor Aguirregabiria's GAUSS computer codes.
MATLAB code to construct Halton Sequences in N-dimensions (useful for Monte Carlo Integration) from Allan Collard-Wexler web page.
Stata module to estimate Berry, Levinsohn, and Pakes Random Coefficients Logit estimator. I have not tried it but I will be happy to hear from anyone's experience.
Replication of BLP, by Matt Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro, with code and data.
Calculating the "Log Sum of Exponentials" for dynamic discrete choice models, by Jason Blevins.
Web Page for Research Computing at BU, started by Marc Rysman.
On LaTeX Tips:
On Data Codes for Social Sciences:
"Code and Data for the Social Sciences: A Practitioner’s Guide," by Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro.
On Data Sets:
Note: I do not own nor do I have permission to distribute or use any of these data. I have compiled this list for education purposes. I have used different sources: the Center of Study for Industrial Organization at Northwestern University, web pages from several IO economists, and publicly available links. Please contact the relevant owners to obtain their authorization before using the data.
Railway data used by Porter (1983) in Stata format.
Tire data used by Bresnahan and Reiss in ASCII format.
ERIM Database from the James M. Kilts Center for Marketing from University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
IRI Database from SymphonyIRI Group, Inc. (panel scanner data on consumers).
Scanner Data from Spanish supermarket (prices, sales and inventories for several goods) from Victor Aguirregabiria's web page.
Scanner Data at the quarter-brand-MSA level for several categories from the Food Marketing Policy Center at the University of Connecticut.
On IO Conferences and Related Awards:
European Association for Research in Industrial Economics (EARIE).
Advances in the Analysis of Competition Policy and Regulation (CRESSE).
SITE: Empirical Implementation of Theoretical Models of Strategic Interaction and Dynamic Behavior
Antitrust Economics and Competition Policy from the Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth at Northwestern.
Chile's Workshop on Industrial Organization and Economic Theory
On Writing Well:
The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White. PDF
On Writing Well, by William Zinsser. Excerpts.
The Careful Writer, by Theodore M. Bernstein.
The Philosophy of Style, by Herbert Spencer.
The Writing of Economics, by Donald N. McCloskey.
Students Guide to Writing Economics, by Robert H. Neugeboren.
A Guide for the Young Economist, by William Thomson.
Guidelines for Writing an Empirical Paper, by Michael Greenstone.
Sample References for Less Common Sources from the AEA.
On Making Presentations:
Some Pointers For Preparing Presentations, by Meghan Busse and Florian Zettelmeyer.
Top 10 List Giving an Effective Presentation, CSWEP Newsletter.
How to give an applied micro talk: Unauthoritative notes, by Jesse Shapiro.
Notes on Presenting a Paper, by Matthew O. Jackson.
On Writing Grants:
Bourne and Chalupa's concise and helpful Ten Simple Rules for Getting Grants.
Tips for Writing a Successful Grant Proposal from the Alfred P. Loan Foundation.
On Diversity and Inclusion
"How You Can Work to Increase the Presence and Improve the Experience of Black, Latinx, and Native American People in the Economics Profession," by Amanda Bayer, Gary A. Hoover, and Ebonya Washington.
Building a More Diverse, Inclusive, and Productive Profession, by AEA.
On Heterogeneous Topics:
How to Write a Referee Report in Economics, by J. B. Berk, C. R. Harvey and D. Hirshleifer.
Reviewer Guidelines to Conduct a Referee Report, by Elsevier.
"8 reasons I accepted your article," by By Elizabeth Zwaaf.
Mentoring Reading Materials, from the AEA site.
Avinash Dixit's "system of work" for research economists.
The Center for the Study of Industrial Organization at Northwestern.
The Awesomest 7-Year Postdoc or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tenure-Track Faculty Life (by Radhika Nagpal) .
Data's Ascendancy: Eight of the World’s Top Young Economists Discuss Where Their Field Is Going.
"The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," by Carl Sagan (Chapter 12, The Demon-Haunted World, 1966).
CV of Failures by Johannes Haushofer. Permanent here and here.
"Some Notes on the Art of Theoretical Modeling in Economics," by A. Dixit.
"My System of Work (Not!)," by A. Dixit.
"Reflections on the Day," by Peter C. B. Phillips.
"Which College Degrees Get the Highest Salaries?" based on PayScale’s survey of 1.2 million users that graduated only with a bachelor degree in the U.S.
"An Option Value Problem from Seinfeld," by A. Dixit.
Economics journals that take short papers, by Dweepobotee Brahma. Thanks Cecilia!
On Structural Econometrics:
"Taking the Dogma Out of Econometrics: Structural Modeling and Credible Inference," By Aviv Nevo and Michael Whinston.
"Causal Parameters and Policy Analysis in Economics: A Twentieth Century Retrospective," by James Heckman.
"Structural vs. atheoretic approaches to econometrics," by Michael P. Keane.
"Comments on: `Structural vs. Atheoretic Approaches to Econometrics' by Michael Keane," by John Rust.
On Rankings and Turnaround of Economic Journals:
Best Economics and Finance Journals for Economics by Research.com.
"Journal Ranking by Recursive Discounted Impact Factors Over Last 10 Years," by IDEAS/RePEc.
"A Journal Ranking for the Ambitious Economist," by K. Engemann and H. Wall.
"An Updated Ranking of Academic Journals in Economics," by P. Kalaitzidakis, T. Mamuneas, and T. Stengos.
"New Approaches to Ranking Economics Journals," by Y. Kodrzycki and P. Yu.
"A 2016 ranking of economics journals based on citations in top 5 journals."
Journal Turnaround Times App, by Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato.
On Rankings of Business Schools, Economic Departments, and Universities:
First things first. "Why the FTC Needs to Intervene in Law School Rankings," by Darren Bush.
Ranking of Graduate Programs in Economics in 1983 from the National Research Council.
Collection of Journal Rankings, by Macau.
Top US Economics Departments by RePEc/IDEAS.
Best Economics and Finance Universities in the World by Research.com.
Economics Research Ranking 2012-2016, by Tilburg University.
Economics & Econometrics Rankings, by QS World University Rankings.
Academic Ranking in Economics/Business, by Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities.
Program Rankings Links, by AEA.
A Not-so-clear ranking of top Public Schools in the US in 2021, by U.S. News.
A Not-so-clear Survey Ranking of Graduate Economics Programs (by U.S. News based on 2016 Survey to Department Heads/Chairs).
On Rankings of Economists:
Top 1000 Economists by RePEc/IDEAS.
Top 10 percent authors at RePEc/IDEAS.
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My Erdős number is 6 (calculate yours): P. Erdős - F. Chung - J. Cohen - B. Singer - J. Heckman - G. Veramendi - J. Donna.
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You can follow me on Twitter: @javdito
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Please email me if you find a problem with the links above.
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This webpage contains links to open resources that are available for free and is intended for academic and educational purposes.
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Please do not email me asking to add links to resources that are not free and public.