Introduction
This course guide is related to the Intermediate Macroeconomics assignment to select one area of policy that will be explored in a research paper. Students must locate sets of data that relate the chosen policy to other broader economic factors, perform some basic statistical analysis of the relationships between these data sets, and describe their results as a research paper with a literature review, data background section, results of analysis, and conclusion. A presentation to the class is also required. The information needed will be a topic, one journal article, and data sources.
Sally Carroll-Ricks, MLS, MM, AHIP, Assist. Prof., Library
in collaboration with Annette Citzler, PhD, Prof. of Economics and Business Administration, January 22, 2009
Texas Lutheran University
- Determine the kind of information you need and how much.
- Access the information you need effectively and efficiently.
- Evaluate the information you retrieve and the credentials of the author or publisher and incorporate valid information into your knowledge, values, and practice (ex., solving a problem or making a decision--academic, personal, or professional).
- Use the information effectively to accomplish your specific purpose (ex., writing a paper, making a presentation, creating a poster).
- Analyze the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of your information, and then access and use the information ethically and legally.
based on the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education
Association of College and Research Libraries, 2000
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In deciding a topic, you should "browse" the periodical literature (journals, magazines, newspapers) to get a broad understanding of what has been written about various economic variables. A useful search strategy is to use keyword searching on the name of your variable and use the Boolean AND operator to add other keywords such as "trends," "outlook," "patterns," or "forecast." For articles about other countries, add the country's name as a keyword. If you retrieve too many hits, limit the search on your variable's name to the Title or Abstract field only, so that the variable is an important concept in the article.
Once you complete a search, use the limiters available in the database to narrow your results further. For example, in Business Source Complete, you can limit your results to Full Text; to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals; Language; Publication Type (Academic Journal, Periodical, Trade Publication, etc.); or by publication date. Once you capture the economic data you will be utilizing, you may need to limit your article to a date that corresponds to the date of your data.
Initially, to get a quick overview of possible topics, use the library's federated search engine, QuickSearch, because it can search authoritative databases known to contain full-text articles. It is a fast way to search broadly for a topic that might interest you. Citations are returned uniformly, regardless of the database from which it originates and, you can print a list of articles.
Navigate to QuickSearch
- Go to the Library Home Page at http://www.tlu.edu/library
- In LEFT pane, click QuickSearch
- Click Business & Economics
- Enter "macroeconomic variables" [PLURAL] in BOTH search boxes
- Accept the OR operator and click SEARCH
- Wait ... while the metasearch engine searches four databases:
- Academic Search Complete
- Business Source Complete
- LexisNexis Academic
- ProjectMUSE
QuickSearch Metasearch Filters
FullText. On our metasearch list of hits, CHECKMARK the "FullText" box (it will delete all articles that are not full text). Note: if you are conducting a comprehensive literature review and have a few days to receive an Interlibrary Loan, do not check the "Full Text" box--and if the article you want is not full text, order it by clicking the
Interlibrary Loan link.
Clustered Results. Your list of articles is organized by grouping similar articles together.
Paging to the next results. Click a page number to advance to a subsequent screen.
Journals tab. Use this to sort your search results by the name of journal that published the article.
Authors tab. Use this to sort your search results by the name of the author who wrote the article.
Other Possible Search Terms
Enter "macroeconomic variable" [SINGULAR] in BOTH search boxes
"real gross domestic product" or GDP
"consumer price index" or CPI
"terms of trade between agriculture and manufacturing sectors" or TOT
"real investment" or INV
"real value of remittances" or REM
"real net exports" or NX
"real external resources" or RES
"money stock" or M1
"real government expenditure" or GCONS
Refine Your QuickSearch
Click REFINE SEARCH to see the pre-configured QuickSearch you just used. You can then configure your own metasearch.
New QuickSearch
Click NEW SEARCH to clear all boxes and return to the complete alphabetical list of all library databases.
Navigate to an Article in a Library Database
In QuickSearch, click the title of an article to be linked to the article. Once in the database, you can conduct a search limited to that particular database.
Library Databases
Once you conduct a search, if the full-text article is not available in the database you are in, search for the journal title in the library's
Periodical Titles list (link is on the Library Home Page). You may be able to link to the full-text article in another electronic database. If the article is not available, submit an online request for the article through the Interlibrary Loan link (Library Home Page>Make a Request>
Interlibrary Loan--Journal Request).
Business Source Complete (EBSCO) Provides scholarly full text and citations to publications in management, economics, finance, accounting, and international business. To get a broad overview of a particular country, begin by limiting the publication type to Country Report, then narrow the initial list of results by using the choices offered by the database.
Academic Search Complete (EBSCO)
Provides full-text access to scholarly publications in the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences. This database includes the following subsets: Legal Collection, Military & Government Collection, Professional Development Collection, Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection, Religion & Philosophy Collection, Science and Technology, Vocational & Career Collection, and World History Collection.
LexisNexis Academic Universe
Provides full-text documents from over 5,600 news, business, legal, medical, and reference publications with a variety of flexible search options. ProQuest Newspapers Provides full-text access to Austin American Statesman, The Christian Science Monitor, Houston Chronicle, New York Times, San Antonio Express-News, and the Wall Street Journal.
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Several Web sites (from the "open" Internet) allow you to download significant data for macroeconomic variables. Most allow you to open or save the data as either an .xls (Microsoft Excel) or .csv (comma-delimited text) file, which can then be opened in Microsoft Excel. If you want to analyze the relationship between multiple variables, download both variables and use the statistical analysis tools available in Excel. You may have to perform a calculation to obtain the measure you need. For example, you may need to calculate inflation as the percentage change in CPI between time periods.
Penn World Table Web site of U of Pennsylvania, Center for International Comparisons of Production, Income and Prices, providing downloadable Microsoft Excel files. This is an excellent, easy to use Web site.
Economic Report of the President Web site of The White House that allows user to download Microsoft Excel files.
Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) Web site of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, with links to U.S. economic time series, downloadable Microsoft Excel data, and charts of data series.
International Monetary Fund Web site for the International Monetary Fund's Data and Statistics, which will lead user to downloadable Microsoft Excel files. On right, click the latest link, World Economic Outlook Database for [date]>Entire dataset>Choose "By countries" or "By Country Groups." Save the file as an Excel file.
National Bureau of Economic Research Web site of NBER, with links to downloadable data collections, some in Excel, some in PDF.
U.S. Census Bureau Web site of the U.S. Census Bureau. Click "Economic Indicators" to get to downloadable Excel files.
U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis Web site of the U.S. Dept. of Commerce that produces interactive tables related to GDP, income, and other variables, with breakdowns by region, metropolitan area and industry, including downloadable Excel files.
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics Web site of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Click "Databases & Tables (tab or comma txt files)
World Bank Web site for World Bank's Advanced Search screen that allows user to limit hits by format, including downloadable Excel files.
Tip for Capturing Text Data (comma delimited)
Select CSV if available>Send>Copy and paste into Notepad>Save file>Open Excel>File>Open?change "Files of Type" to ALL FILES>Browse to the file you just saved and double-click it>choose DELIMITED>Next>Checkmark COMMA [or TAB or both TAB and COMMA, depending on how data is arranged]>Next>Finish. This works for most files; copying and pasting the data directly into Excel creates more work for you.
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As an ethical professional, and to abide with
copyright, you must inform your audience (whomever is receiving the information you are presenting) of your sources. Standard citation style allows others to retrieve the document or source material that you utilize. As a professional, you should use an official citation manual, recognized by your profession, in forming the description of the documents or sources that you utilize. In business, the most often used style is the
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. An easy way to create an APA citation is to use the library's citation creator,
NoodleBib (NoodleTools), which is limited to TLU students, faculty, and staff.
TLU users must create their own ID and password when first using the full version of NoodleBib (allows you to save your reference list). If you only want to create a citation, but not save it, use NoodleBib Express.
Some databases and web sites suggest formatting of citations but often the format needs correcting to bring it into compliance with the proper style. For this reason, it is recommended that you either consult a style manual or use an online citation creator.
Citing documents from the "open" Internet can be confusing, so if you need assistance in creating a citation, consult the library's Bibliographic Citation Styles web page or, Ask-A-Librarian, but when you submit your question, include the URL for the file you download so we can help you create the standard APA citation for your Reference List.
Sample APA references
References
Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce. (2008). Table 12. U.S. international transactions, by area - Mexico: [annual data for 2000-2005] [Data file]. Retrieved January 25, 2009, from http://www.bea.gov/interactive.htm
O’Brien, M. (1982). Achieving macroeconomic goals. The Review of Economic Studies, 49(1), 117-135. Retrieved January 25, 2009, from JSTOR database.
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