UW Economics Society Wishes You Good Luck!

It's that time again! On behalf of the Economics Society at the University of Waterloo, we want to wish you good luck on your exams!  Even though our hero, Keynes, thought education was a waste of time we paid good money for it!  @uWaterlooEcon will be tweeting encouraging quotes about hard work, perseverance, learning and personal growth to keep you going. There will also be a few interesting articles for your study break!

For those of you taking ECON 402 this term we feel your pain (aside: I myself couldn't handle the strain on my brain). For those taking ECON 311, we are sure you are regretting that choice.

If you aren't in Economics, that's OK. You will probably be coasting through your exams. Just kidding! In all seriousness, we are all screwed.

Have a fantastic break and see you in the Fall!

Presentations

UW Economics Society presents a primer to making presentations!

View more presentations from Ethos3

I know what you Waterloo students are thinking, a presentation about presentations?  Who doesn't love a little meta?  It's betta with meta.  We are going to be curating a list of awesome links to help you strengthen your presentations and make life awesome.

Tips from Around the Web
Questions to Ask Yourself Before a Presentation
How to Format Your Data, Choose the Best Chart
10/20/30 Rule for Pitches to Venture Capitalists by Guy Kawasaki
Presentation Pizzazz: Keep Your Audience's Attention [VIDEO]

Presentation and Communication Blogs
Power Presentations
Decker Communications
Presentation Zen
SlideShare

We will be adding more articles and tips on how to make your presentation stand out as they come in!  Be sure to bookmark for updates.

Last updated August 22, 2012.

Cost of Friendship

UW Economics Society presents some commentary because I know you Waterloo Economics students are eager for some Monday thought-provoking content!

Scrolling through my RSS Feed today and I came up with this little article via Freakonomics, The Cost of Friendship.  The working paper examines the venture capital industry, how friendship plays a role in who we choose to work with and the costs/benefits of such choices.  Economics is all about choices and this paper really highlights that fact!  The most interesting finding, "The likelihood of success drops by 22% if co-investors attended the same undergraduate school."

The study makes use of various dummy variables (zeros and ones) such as gender, educational background, ethnicity (minorities) as well as other variables to determine success of investments called performance variables.  They had a fairly large sample that included "3,510 venture capitalists that invested into 11,895 different portfolio companies from 1975 to 2003."  I know there is a good story somewhere about the Research Assistants that sorted through it all.  

The authors used "probit regressions to fit models with binary dependent variables."  Oh probit!  We don't learn too much about probit in ECON 321 or ECON 421 even.  It seems like a valuable tool to have in our toolkit, especially in marketing research!  However, you can take the initiative to learn it using ECON 422 and ECON 472.  Perhaps now taking those courses won't seem so abstract and theoretical if you can read about an interesting application.  If you are interested you can get the article FREE from our lovely university.  Head on over to our library and Connect from Home to access the NBER Working Papers.

NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES

THE COST OF FRIENDSHIP

Paul Gompers

Vladimir Mukharlyamov

Yuhai Xuan

Working Paper 18141

#uwgrad2012

Congrats to all the University of Waterloo new graduates today!  Shout out to those ones in economics (tehe).  This song reminds me of graduation because of the feeling it evokes.  It's the sense of new beginnings and excitement, very similar to starting at UW!

Anyways enjoy!  I posted the acoustic version to mix it up a bit.  I love Janelle Monáe.

Something Awesome

UW Economics Society presents something awesome (via YouTube and GOOD Magazine)

I know University of Waterloo students need a mind-break!

In a time where there's a free flow of information why is education so static?  For me, this video answers some of those questions.  The next level of awesome this video brings is how it references collaboration.  That very word is in our mandate, coincidence?  I can see words from the future...

The video suggests we could become more motivated to learn by using video games (not something new).  I personally want more games in classrooms but not Angry Birds.  The physicists would have you fooled, you learn nothing in that game!  The best part of the entire video, however, is when Dr. Sugata Mitra asks if math will become a sport. Haha!  There are many good ideas in this video and you might want to keep it in mind while sitting in class.  Are you learning?  Are you motivated to do so?

Experience Exchange

UW Economics Society presents some commentary!

Waterloo Economics students you must watch the above video to fully understand the awesomeness I am about to sell you.  Can you imagine not having your Ye's sushi?  Even the iPads are gone?!  Why would the government do this to those businesses and its citizens?

The Argentina government claims to be stimulating local businesses and industries but the article shows at least some businesses and employees hurt.  At the heart of the story is Argentina's trade balance.

What is a trade balance?  What does that have to do with a trade surplus and why is Argentina so interested in holding it?  The video mentions the resulting deficit is structural, what does that mean?  How and why does Argentina use it's surplus to buy fuel?  This seems very close to the idea of "Buy American" except enforced by a government, why does the Argentina government believe its necessary?

There are just so many questions but all the answers and more can be found in a course, ECON 231 Introduction to International Economics!

You should seriously consider taking ECON 231.  If you are really interested in the topics covered in this video you may also want to consider ECON 436 and 488.

My other blog post about ECON 231 Sharing our Loonie. Check it out! 

Library Help

UW Economics Society Recap!

If you missed out on the super informative session on CANSIM and ODESI with the Economics Librarian Sandra Keys we have got you covered!  Our website has what you need to complete your Senior Honours Essay or Economics other projects!

The relevant links are below:

Basic Instructions on Retrieval

Basic Instructions on Files

Subject Guides

Info Session

Economics

Statistics & Data

We plan on having this information session at the beginning of every term so be on the look out if you are interested in a more hands-on experience!

If you have any questions be sure to contact Sandra, she's got your back!  You can also ask me @uWaterlooEcon but I will offer genuine shoulder shrugs and share in your confusion.

Sharing our Loonie

A while back there was some talk about Iceland adopting the Loonie.  I read an article on The Economist declaring that few barriers exist for Iceland adopting the Loonie.  Also for the most part, Icelanders were split down the middle between adopting the Euro vs the Loonie.

There is a link back to the University of Waterloo here!  Robert Mundell, famous for the Mundell-Fleming Model we learn in ECON 202, won a Nobel prize for his work on Optimal Currency Areas.  How is this a connection?  He taught here! 

A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

How can one country just adopt our Loonie?  What does this mean for Canada?  Where would we find more information about this?  A great place to start is ECON 231. Ah HA! You thought this article would be enlightening but you were wrong!

I have taken ECON 231 with Prof Bloemhof and I enjoyed it.  It's a bit different than the courses we are used to as university students but experiencing something different, new and exciting can't be all bad, right?  If you want more of the regular flavour I have spoken with Prof Blit and he seems like a cool guy.

So if you are interested in Trade Theory and International Economics ECON 231 is offered every term!

Sources

http://www.economist.com/node/21549967

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimum_currency_area

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mundell

Info Session

The Economics Society is EXCITED to announce our first event of the term!

Are you doing a major project or essay this term and need your own data?  Confused on where to look for all this?  Have you ever had to manually enter values into an excel spreadsheet off the StatsCan website?

COME OUT to our information session on ODESI and CANSIM.  Both are databases filled with tables and tables of information.  They are accessible comfortably from home if you know how!  It will be presented by our charismatic Economics Librarian, Sandra Keys.

MONDAY MAY 7, 2012

10am - 1130am,  HH 280

Bring your Laptop if you want to follow along!

See you there!