This post is about reading economics articles for real world examples; it recommends some good resources that you may be interested in utilising for your economics education.
When writing economics essays, the issue of theory versus practice often comes up.
Many economics students tend to either write essays that are full of economic models, theories, diagrams, and technical arguments, that do not really address the question; or they tend to write essays that are full of real world news, or economic news such as Bitcoin that also do not really answer the question, and do not link the theories to these events.
Quite naturally, the issue is that to write a really good economics essay for the A levels, or for any economics examination in general, students should have a balance between economic theories and models, as well as real world economics examples or real life events that validate or discredit those models.
This article is thus specially written for economics students who have a strong grounding in economic theory, but need that special difference in their essays. To provide something extra, that special X factor, students have to include relevant, real world, current economic examples.
The question that follows is, what economics articles should be read to provide relevant, real world economics examples?
The following are some very good resources to read or to follow:
1. For Singapore & International News: The Straits Times
The broadsheet The Straits Times is a good area to start with, because it reports on news and current affairs, and has forum letters on all sorts of economic issues. The money section on Sundays is often quite well written and would be a good start for learning about investment and finance. For Mondays to Fridays, there is a section in the newspaper on economics news and related events, about mergers and acquisitions, businesses and companies, and macroeconomic news. All these provide good information and background knowledge for a good student of economics.
2. For good economics writing: The Economist
I tend to like The Economist a lot. (Oh, by the way, if you are reading for General Paper I would strongly recommend Readers' Digest. But I digress.)
The Economist provides a range of economic articles that are directed towards people who may or may not have an economics education, and as such it is very readable. It provides a good overview of many current news events and also provides sound economic analysis, without mathematics or econometric models. One economics tutor friend of mine remarked to me that perhaps students could have a The Economist-centred education, where they would read articles and discuss them as the mainstay of a tutorial. You can access this really good magazine either in hardcopy, but it is also available online.
3. The use of Info-Comm Technology - On Twitter: https://twitter.com/realworldecons
@realworldecons helps economics students to think about real world examples of economics, to see economics applied to the real world context to complement their education. It basically has news on economic events, news, current affairs, and articles on finance, investment, and economics in general.
I would strongly recommend that you follow @realworldecons because it might be really useful to keep updated on news events, economics articles, and a whole range of economics examples that you could use in your essays. When you follow it, you will see what I mean - economics is a really interesting subject because of its connections and relevance to the real world.
In summary, remember to read economics articles and learn more about real world news, events, and knowledge, so that you can include these in your economics essays.
Thanks for reading and cheers :)
JC Economics Essays - Always remember that good, well-crafted economics essays should have relevant, real world economics examples
