Resources for the young economist

Below are some resources that I found helpful when starting in academia.

How to write economics?

These two are a good starting point:

• John H. Cochrane’s ‘Writing tips for PhD. Students’. You will also find tips on how to do empirical work and how to present your research.
• Deidre McCloskey’s great article in Economic Inquiry. She turned it into a book, which got its own summary.

There are also guides about non-fiction writing in general. I particularly enjoyed On Writing Well by William Zinsser. Lots of small and big tips on how to write non-fiction properly.

What is the journal ranking?

Some rankings try to capture the feeling of the community, such as:

• The Keele list, here hosted on Daniel Zizzo’s website. It also summarises other popular rankings, such as the ‘blue ribbon’ journals and the Diamond list.
• The Handelsblatt ranking (here in pdf). Probably the most simple of all.

Communities within each country also have their own ranking: the French CNRS ranking (pdf), the UK ABS ranking…

Other rankings are inferred from some data:

• The most famous is probably RePEc/IDEAS. You can select between different flavours, for example the aggregate ranking for the past 10 years. But RePEc only counts papers from registered authors, which can bias the results.
• This paper uses citation count:

Kalaitzidakis, Pantelis, Theofanis P. Mamuneas, and Thanasis Stengos (2011) “An updated ranking of academic journals in economics.” Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d’économique, 44(4): 1525-1538

• Arne Hole used data from the REF in the UK:

Hole, Arne Risa (2017) “Ranking economics journals using data from a national research evaluation exercise”, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 79(5): 621-636

• Google Scholar also has its own ranking.

Bonus: I have sent my paper to a journal, but how long will it take? The answer is always in the editors’ report (for example, Econometrica, AER).

How to review papers?

Two recent papers will tell you all you need to know:

Berk, Jonathan B., Campbell R. Harvey, and David Hirshleifer (2017) “How to Write an Effective Referee Report and Improve the Scientific Review Process.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31(1): 231-44

Berk, Jonathan B., Campbell R. Harvey, and David Hirshleifer (2016) “Preparing a Referee Report: Guidelines and Perspectives”, SSRN working paper

They even made a checklist.

How to navigate the job market?

The most famous guide is John Cawley’s, here in its 2016-2017 edition. It is targeted to the US job market but most of the advice also applies to Europe.

The Department of Economics at Harvard lists a good bunch of resources, such as David Laibson’s tips, Eric Zwick’s love the market and the FAQs (#1, #2, #3, #4).

Some other good resources:

• A summary by Chicago
• ‘Tips on how to avoid disaster in presentations’ by Monika Piazzesi
• Claudia Steinwender’s ‘Insights on the job market’
• Johannes Pfeifer’s website lists many more

Professional etiquette and miscellaneous

Daniel Hamermesh wrote great articles about the economic profession. This one is a classic:

Hamermesh, Daniel S. (1992) “The young economist’s guide to professional etiquette.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 6(1): 169-179

It is a little bit outdated (“Nearly all journals send an acknowledging postcard when your paper is received”) but still contains solid advice.

Daniel Hamermesh published two other papers in the same vein:

Hamermesh, Daniel S. (1994) “Facts and Myths about Refereeing.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 8(1): 153-163

Hamermesh, Daniel S. (2018) “Citations In Economics: Measurement, Uses, and Impacts.” Journal of Economic Literature, 56(1): 115-156

If you want to dig deeper in economic writing, Deidre McCloskey has another great article on the rhetoric of economics:

McCloskey, Deidre (1983) “The Rhetoric of Economics.” Journal of Economic Literature, 21(2): 481-517

Want more?

Have a look at the list on Masayuki Kudamatsu’s website for many more links.