The Scout Report for Business & Economics

December 4, 1997

A Publication of the Internet Scout Project
Computer Sciences Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The target audience of the new Scout Report for Business & Economics is faculty, students, staff, and librarians in business and economics. Each biweekly issue offers a selective collection of Internet resources covering topics in the field that have been chosen by librarians and content specialists in the given area of study.

The Scout Report for Business & Economics is also provided via email once every two weeks. Subscription information is included at the bottom of each issue.

Research Current Awareness

Learning Resources New Data

General Interest In the News

Institute for International Economics
http://www.iie.com/
The Institute for International Economics is a "private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research institution devoted to the study of international economic policy." This web site contains short abstracts and press releases of books published by the Institute. Speeches, testimonies and essays by the staff at the Institute on a variety of international economics issues are also available as is a collection of working papers published since 1994. [THN]
[Back to Contents]
Guiding the Transition to Sustainable Development: A Critical Role for the OECD
http://www.oecd.org/subject/sustdev/
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released a report on the environment. This report, written by an advisory group established by the OECD Secretary-General, urges the OECD to "develop into the key intergovernmental organisation providing the industrialised nations with the analytic and comparative framework of policy necessary for their economies to make the transition to sustainable development." The report recommends that the first step be to "redefine its (OECD) commitment to "sustainable economic growth" to mean growth that sustains human and environmental, as well as economic, capital." French and German versions of the report are available at the site in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format. [THN]
[Back to Contents]
Strategis [.pdf]
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/
Strategis is a web site developed by Industry Canada to provide business information resources to Canadian businesses. Resources available include a searchable database of Canadian companies, business information for each sector, a list of business support services, and a guide to business laws and regulation. The International Business Information Network offers information about business opportunities abroad; Trade Data Online provides Canadian and US trade data. A collection of research publications by Industry Canada and monthly economic indicators on the economy are additional economic resources found at this site. Users can view this site in French or English. [THN]
[Back to Contents]
The Kyoto Summit - December 1997: The OECD and Climate Change [.pdf]
http://www.oecd.org/subject/climatechange/kyoto.htm
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has assembled a collection of resources in conjunction with the third United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change (UNFCC) in Kyoto, Japan. The main objective of the site is to help visitors "understand how economic, environmental, social and development policies can best reinforce each other" to achieve the goal of sustainable development. The OECD suggests that policy and subsidy reforms in the energy and transportation sector, together with a system of international trading in greenhouse gas emission, be used to counter the effects of global warming. The web site provides a large number of papers (Adobe Acrobat [.pdf] format) written on the issue of global change. [THN]
[Back to Contents]
JSTOR
http://www.jstor.org/
Participating JSTOR Sites
http://www.jstor.org/about/charter.html
JSTOR aims to "build a reliable and comprehensive archive of important scholarly journal literature" and make them available to the scholarly community. Journals from ten fields ranging from Asian Studies to Population Studies can be accessed through JSTOR at the moment. JSTOR does not archive the most recent issues of the journals. Instead it maintains a lag period of three to five years. The articles in JSTOR are fully searchable and users can choose to view them online or print them out for offline reading. The economics journals available are The American Economic Review, Econometrica, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, The Journal of Political Economy, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, The Review of Economics and Statistics and The Journal of Money, Credit and Banking. Note that access to JSTOR is restricted to individuals at subscribing institutions. [THN]
[Back to Contents]

The Official Paul Krugman Web Page
http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/
The home page of Paul Krugman, Professor of Economics at MIT, contains links to online articles written by him on various topical issues related to the economy. The largest number of articles at the site hail from Krugman's monthly column "The Dismal Science" in Slate (discussed in the July 12, 1996 Scout Report). Recent articles cover issues such as the debate over free trade and the Asian currency crisis. Paul Krugman now also writes a monthly column for Fortune magazine; in his first article he sets out to debunk the New Economy concept. Other articles at the site primarily address trade issues. [THN]
[Back to Contents]
International Economics
http://dylee.keel.econ.ship.edu/intntl/ecn321/321syl.htm
Dr. Daniel Y. Lee, Professor of Economics at the Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, has provided the course materials for his International Economics class at this web site. The International Economics course is designed for advanced undergraduate students. Course contents available at this site include: full lecture notes covering topics such as the Ricardian trade model, Heckscher-Ohlin trade theory, trade policies and tariffs; balance of payments and exchange rates. There is also a good collection of links to other web resources on International Economics. [THN]
[Back to Contents]
Invest Smart
http://library.thinkquest.org/10326/
Invest Smart is developed by a group of students for the ThinkQuest competition. It provides basic investment tips to get people comfortable with the idea of investing. A more comprehensive Investment Lessons section introduces users to the various types of financial instruments (stocks, bonds and mutual funds), taxes and a glossary of financial terms. After the lessons, users can test their stock-picking skills by participating in the Invest Smart Market Simulation. In the simulation, users pick a portfolio of stock and mutual funds, and Invest Smart keep track of the value of the portfolio using real stock and mutual fund quotes. [THN]
[Back to Contents]
Business Administration 130 Home Page
http://econ161.berkeley.edu/Teaching_Folder/BA_130_F96/BAonethirty.html
Professor Bradford De Long of the Department of Economics, University of California at Berkeley has provided the lecture notes for his Business Administration 130 (Introduction to Finance) class. The lecture notes cover topics such as present value, portfolio theory, diversification, capital asset pricing model (CAPM), capital budgeting, corporate finance, and financial derivatives. The site also contains the syllabus, homeworks, answers for the homeworks and practice exams and answers for the course. [THN]
[Back to Contents]
National Budget Simulation--UC Berkeley
http://socrates.berkeley.edu:3333/budget/budget.html
The National Budget Simulation web site is provided by the University of California-Berkeley's Center for Community Economic Research. Users are asked to cut the 1995 fiscal deficit in order to achieve a balanced budget. The aim of the site is to highlight the trade-offs that are needed to achieve a balanced budget. There are two versions of the simulation. In the short version only broad categories of spending and taxes can be altered, while in the longer version the categories of spending and taxes that can be altered are more detailed. After making changes to spending and taxes, users can see the effects on the budget deficit. [THN]
[Back to Contents]

Electronic Accountant
http://www.electronicaccountant.com/
The Electronic Accountant site bills itself as the "accountant's web magazine and resource guide." It is developed by Faulkner and Gray, a business publisher. The site features accounting news stories from Newswire and a selection of feature articles on the accounting industry from magazines published by Faulkner and Gray. Sections on business technology consulting and job listings are included. Moderated discussion groups are the highlight of this site; participant ask and answer questions on a variety of accounting issues such as financial planning, software, nonprofits, tax and technology. [THN]
[Back to Contents]
Smart Business Supersite
http://www.smartbiz.com/Welcome.html
Smart Business Supersite provides "how-to" business information. This site houses a large, searchable database of business-related articles that are organized into general categories such as franchising, management and human resource management. Some of these articles were written exclusively for the Smart Business Supersite. Also available are special sections on resources for job seekers and employers, and information on doing business on the Internet. [THN]
[Back to Contents]
Net Marketing
http://netb2b.com/
Net Marketing is a monthly supplement to the Business Marketing magazine that "covers the strategies, tactics and techniques for marketers to succeed on the Web." The highlight of the site is the Knowledge Base sections, which contains a searchable database of current and past features on the topic of marketing on the Internet. Users can consult the web price index for an estimate of how much it costs to build a web site, and view a list of web developers who work in major cities. Internet novices can benefit from the glossary of Internet terms. [THN]
[Back to Contents]
Swissinvest.com
http://www.swissinvest.com/
Swissinvest.com is a site that provides information on the Swiss financial market. It contains both "real time and end of the day quotes and charts for securities and their associated derivatives" listed on the Zurich stock exchange. Other features of the site include a press release email service that delivers the latest press release to you through email and "quotes and information on companies traded on the "grey market," that is companies which are about to go public." [THN]
[Back to Contents]
Public Register's Annual Report Service
http://www.prars.com/
The Public Register's Annual Report Service (PRARS) offers "company financials, including annual reports, prospectuses or 10k's on over 3,200 public companies" free of charge to the US investing public. For selected companies, PRARS provides a brief description of the company together with the company's financial profile. The site also includes a guide to understanding the financial statements in a company's annual report (available in HTML or .pdf format). [THN]
[Back to Contents]

(For links to additional current awareness on periodicals, journals, working papers, new books, etc., visit the Business & Economics Current Awareness Metapage: http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/bus-econ/metapage/).
Working Papers
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy Working Papers
http://brie.berkeley.edu/~briewww/pubs/wp/
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE) has released a new working paper (WP 105) titled "Building China's Information Technology Industry: Tariff Policy and China's Accession to the WTO" by Michael Borrus and Stephen Cohen. [THN]

Federal Reserve System
Federal Reserve Board of Governors Finance and Economics Discussion Series [.pdf, .ps]
http://www.bog.frb.fed.us/pubs/feds/1997/index.html
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Working Papers [.pdf]
http://www.clev.frb.org/research/workpapr/1997/index.htm
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Working Paper [.pdf]
http://www.frbsf.org/econrsrch/workingp/indx.wp.html
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Staff Reports [.pdf], [.ps]
http://research.mpls.frb.fed.us/research/sr/sr.html
The Federal Reserve Board of Governors has released nine new papers in its Finance and Economic Discussion Series (1997-44 to 1997-52). The papers cover inflation, antitrust in banking, labor markets and hyperinflation. The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland has released a new working paper titled "Absolute Priority Rule Violations, Credit Rationing, and Efficiency" by Stanley D. Longhofer. The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has released a new working paper titled "Growth and Investment Across Countries: Are Primitives All That Matter?" by Mark Spiegel. The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis has released Staff Report 241 titled "Transaction Services, Inflation and Welfare" by S. Rao Aiyagari, R. Anton Braun, and Zvi Eckstein. [THN]

IMF Working Papers [.pdf]
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/CAT/wp.cfm
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has released eight new working papers (WP/97/142 to WP/97/149). These papers cover topics such as debt accumulation in a small open economy, financial sector reform, nominal income and inflation-growth divide, and competitiveness in transitional economies. [THN]

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
OECD Symposium on "Ethics in the Public Sector: Challenges and Opportunities for OECD Countries"
http://www.oecd.org/puma/gvrnance/ethics/symposium/
OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Working Papers [Word]
http://www.oecd.org/agr/publications/age_pufr.htm
The OECD has released the documents (or their executive summaries) presented at the Symposium on Ethics in the Public Sector. The purpose of the Symposium was to "identify the ethical challenges" and find ways to improve ethics management in the public sector. The OECD has also released three new working papers titled "Agriculture, trade and the environment: anticipating the policy challenges," "Uses of Food Labelling Regulations," and "Cost and Benefits of Food Safety Regulations: Fresh Meat Hygiene Standards in the United Kingdom." [THN]
[Back to Contents]
Periodicals
Federal Reserve System
Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices [.pdf]
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/SnLoanSurvey/
Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Survey of Tenth District Manufacturers [.pdf]
http://www.frbkc.org/mfgsurv/mfgmain.htm
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Economic Review [.pdf]
http://www.frbsf.org/econrsrch/econrev/index.html
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Quarterly Review [.pdf], [.ps]
http://research.mpls.frb.fed.us/research/qr/qr.html
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Survey of Professional Forecasters
http://www.phil.frb.org/econ/spf/survq497.html
The Federal Reserve Board of Governors has released the November 1997 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices. The results of the survey will be used in the November meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has released the fourth quarter 1997 manufacturing survey for the Tenth District. Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has released the 1997 - Number 2 issue of the Economic Review. It contains articles on factor utilization, the distributional impact of economic growth, and expected returns on stocks and bonds. The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis has released the Fall 1997 issue of the Quarterly Review. It examines the question of what determines the value of money. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has released the fourth quarter 1997 Survey of Professional Forecasters. The results of the survey show that expectations of long-term inflation have fallen to an all-time low. [THN]

OECD 1st Policy Brief on Electronic Commerce [.pdf]
http://www.oecd.org/publications/Pol_brief/9701_Pol.htm
The OECD has released the first in a series of policy briefs intended to make public the latest information on electronic commerce. The policy briefs begin with a short introduction on electronic commerce and proceed to examine the implications for consumers, businesses and government. [THN]
[Back to Contents]
Books and Journals
Journal of Econometrics [.pdf]
http://www.elsevier.nl/inca/homepage/sae/econbase/econom/
Journal of Financial Economics
http://www.elsevier.nl/inca/homepage/sae/econbase/finec/
The full text of articles from the Journal of Econometrics, starting from Volume 76, Issues 1-2, is now available at this web site. The full text of articles from the Journal of Financial Economics, starting with Volume 43, Issue 1, is also available. Articles will be free for a limited time, and then available "for users affiliated to institutes with a full subscription to the paper journal." [THN]

Academia Book Releases--Baker & Taylor--December 1997
December 1997 Books in Business
http://www.baker-taylor.com/Academia/M12/UBBS/ubbs17.html
December 1997 Books in Economics
http://www.baker-taylor.com/Academia/M12/UBBS/ubbs16.html
Baker & Taylor's Academia site has put together a collection of newly available books in Business and Economics. [THN]
[Back to Contents]
Conferences
History of Economic Thought Society of Australia (HETSA) Annual Conference
http://btwebsh.macarthur.uws.edu.au/steveK/hetsa98.htm
The History of Economic Thought Society of Australia (HETSA) will hold its 1998 annual conference at the University of Western Sydney Macarthur in Sydney, Australia from July 15th through July 17th, 1998. [THN]

Congress of the European Regional Science Association
http://www.wu-wien.ac.at/ersa/ersa98.html
The 38th Congress of the European Regional Science Association will be held in Vienna, Austria from August 28 to September 1, 1998. The themes of the conference include "Regional Economics in Transition: Institutional Development and Socio-Economic Change," "The Monetary Union, Regional Policy and Regional Integration," and "Poverty, Labor Markets and Migration," among others. [THN]
[Back to Contents]
Jobs
Job Openings in Economics from the Chronicle of Higher Education
http://thisweek.chronicle.com/.ads/.ads-by-group/.faculty/.sscience/.econ/.links.htm
Job Openings in Business and Management from the Chronicle of Higher Education
http://thisweek.chronicle.com/.ads/.ads-by-group/.faculty/.professional/.business/.links.html
[Back to Contents]

(For links to additional sources of new data see the Business & Economics Current Awareness Metapage: http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/bus-econ/metapage/).
Bureau of Economic Analysis
U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services, September 1997
http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/newsrel/trad0997.txt
Gross Domestic Product, Third Quarter 1997 (preliminary)
http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/newsrel/gdp397p.txt
Personal Income and Outlays, October 1997
http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/newsrel/pi1097.txt
The Bureau of Economic Analysis has released the data on international trade and services for September 1997. The goods and services deficit increased to $11.1 billion in September from $9.5 billion in August due to the higher goods deficit. Preliminary estimates from the Bureau of Economic Analysis show that real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 3.3% in the third quarter of 1997. The Bureau of Economic Analysis also released figures showing that personal income increased by 0.5% in October. [THN]
[Back to Contents]
Energy Information Agency (EIA)
US Crude Oil, Natural Gas, and Natural Gas Liquids Reserves Annual Report 1996 (145 pages) [.pdf, .xls, .wks]
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/natural_gas/nat_frame.html
The EIA has published "the estimates of proved reserves of crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids in the United States as of December 31, 1996, compiled from EIA's oil and gas operator survey." The report shows that while reserves of natural gas have increased, crude oil reserves have declined. [THN]
Select: Annual/U.S. Crude Oil, Natural Gas, and Natural Gas Liquids Reserves 1996 Annual Report
[Back to Contents]
Rural Conditions and Trends: Socioeconomic Conditions Issue--USDA ERS [.pdf]
http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/rcat/
The Economic Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture has released a new issue of Rural Conditions and Trends (Volume 8, Number 2.) It presents an "annual review of socioeconomic well-being of rural areas in the United States." The issue also surveys the issues of multiple jobholding, the working poor, the elderly, immigrants, births to unmarried mothers, and housing. [THN]
[Back to Contents]
Trust Assets of Financial Institutions - 1996--FDIC
http://www2.fdic.gov/structur/trust/index_old.html
The US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has released this report, a series of 47 tables (ASCII format only) in five major categories (personal and employee benefit trust activities, collective investment funds, corporate trust activities, affiliated investment advisors, and fiduciary income.) [JS]
[Back to Contents]

1997 APEC summit
APEC 97 [NetShow], [RealSpace]
http://www.apec97.gc.ca/
[Note: Resource(s)/URL(s) mentioned above is no longer available.]
Vancouver Sun APEC 97 news archive
http://www.vancouversun.com/newsite/apec-archive-c.html
[Note: Resource(s)/URL(s) mentioned above is no longer available.]
APEC Secretariat Home Page [Word]
http://www.apecsec.org.sg/
International Institute for Sustainable Development APEC site
http://iisd.ca/apec/default.htm
[Note: Resource(s)/URL(s) mentioned above is no longer available.]
Currency crises
http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/crises.html
Bahtulism: Who poisoned Asia's currency markets?
http://www.slate.com/Dismal/97-08-14/Dismal.asp
This week's In the News looks at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Vancouver, Canada. The six resources above provide links to issues discussed at that meeting. The APEC Leaders and Ministers meeting was held in Vancouver, Canada from November 21 to November 25, 1997. APEC is a grouping of 18 Asia-Pacific economies formed in 1989 to promote trade and cooperation in the region. Traditionally, the APEC meeting has focused on trade issues, but this year's focus was the economic crisis in Southeast Asia and South Korea.
APEC 97 is the official site for the APEC Leaders and Ministers meeting. It provides a short history of APEC, short biographical notes on the leaders and ministers attending the meeting, in-depth information about the APEC economies, listings of venues and events, and a news section with up-to-date news of APEC 97. The Vancouver Sun provides a comprehensive news archive of the issues and events at APEC 97. The APEC Secretariat Home Page contains several resources on APEC including Ministerial statements and Leader's declarations from the past APEC meetings, information on the various working groups and committees in APEC, and selected full-text publications (HTML and Microsoft Word format). The International Institute for Sustainable Development APEC site provides links to sustainable development issues for APEC including a Developing Ideas Digest issue on APEC. Currency crises is an article, written by Paul Krugman for the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) conference held in October 1997, presents economic models of currency crises and several case studies. "Bahtulism: Who poisoned Asia's currency markets?" is an article written by Paul Krugman for Slate on the recent currency crisis in Asia. [THN]
[Back to Contents]

Subscription and Contact Information

To subscribe to the Scout Report for Business & Economics, send email to:
listserv@cs.wisc.edu
In the body of the message type:
subscribe SRBUSECON

For subscription options, send email to:
listserv@cs.wisc.edu
In the body of the message type:
query SRBUSECON

Internet Scout team member information:
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/addserv/team.html

The Scout Report for Business & Economics
Brought to You by the Internet Scout Project

The Scout Report for Business & Economics is published every other Thursday by the Internet Scout Project, located in the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Department of Computer Sciences.

Susan Calcari
Jack Solock
Thiam Hee Ng
Jeannine Ramsey
Michael de Nie

--
--
--
--
--

Managing Editor
Editor
Assistant Editor
Production Editor
Technical Editor

Copyright Susan Calcari and the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, 1994-1998. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the Scout Report for Business & Economics provided the copyright notice and this paragraph is preserved on all copies. The Internet Scout Project provides information about the Internet to the US research and education community under a grant from the National Science Foundation, number NCR-9712163. The Government has certain rights in this material.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Wisconsin - Madison or the National Science Foundation.

A Publication of the Internet Scout Project

Comments, Suggestions, Feedback
Use our feedback form or send email to scout@cs.wisc.edu.