Ask, find evidence, and judge like an economist
WYE Open Resources is a free economics self-study guide that needs no registration. Ten modules, from posing a question to publishing responsibly, then tools, competitions, and research identity. Every recommended database, textbook, and guide is a genuine, free public resource, linked directly to its official site.
W2 · OPEN RESOURCES
Three shelves: practice, the knowledge system, and the journal
Interactive open readings compiled and published by WYE editors and volunteers. Students and volunteers alike may take charge of producing a topic, or initiate and edit an independent one.
Hover to draw a book from the shelf · Click to open and read
If your browser cannot open one — it will not load, the network blocks it, or you need to read offline — register a WYE account and download the archived file in your language from the forum library, saying which page failed in that title's thread.
From a first publication to graduate applications and career choices.
Intellectual history, models, and the map of the discipline — a complete frame of reference.
A journal-style series expanded issue by issue: crisis events, Nobel models, student features, and more.
The five parts of an economics essay
Good economic writing is not an accumulation of jargon; it explains one real question clearly.
Ten checks before you submit
The ten comments reviewers write most often. Going through them one by one removes most of the avoidable losses.
Writing references and tools
Honing a broad interest into a researchable question
A good research question is clearly scoped, involves real trade-offs, has findable evidence — and genuinely interests you.
Abstract → introduction → conclusion → figures → (only if needed) method details. Decide whether a paper deserves close reading before investing the time.
Where to find the literature
The five parts of a literature review
A literature review is not a list of the papers you have read. It maps what is already known about the question and points to the piece you intend to add.
Search technique: save yourself three hours
Once you find a paper that fits the question, do three things: read its reference list (going backwards); click “cited by” in Google Scholar (going forwards); and see what else its authors have written recently. Three steps usually cover the main literature on the question.
Free public data starts here
All the databases below are free and maintained by official or authoritative institutions; you can chart, download, and cite them directly.
Maintained by the St. Louis Fed: 800,000+ US and international time series (inflation, GDP, unemployment, rates), with on-site charting, transformation, and download.
Development indicators for 200+ countries and territories (poverty, education, health, GDP); many series reach back to 1960 — ideal for cross-country comparison.
A nonprofit site produced with an Oxford-based team: 14,000+ interactive charts across 126 topics, with charts and data openly licensed (CC BY) for direct citation.
A macro-indicator database of broad, comparable coverage, with about five years of official forecasts.
The most detailed international goods-trade database — query bilateral trade in specific goods between any two countries.
China’s official statistics platform, covering national accounts, prices, population, and employment in annual and monthly series.
Correlation is not causation
Two things moving together does not mean one causes the other. Before claiming causation, screen for three common traps: confounders (a third factor drives both), reverse causation (the direction is backwards), and selection effects (the groups compared differ from the start).
How economists approach causation
Secondary students need not master these methods, but knowing they exist helps you judge the credibility of research you read.
Citation: APA 7 quick reference
Citation is not a formality — it lets readers verify your evidence. The WYE Essay Prize requires APA 7th edition.
AI may be used — but transparently
AI can help you explore concepts, test counterarguments, improve structure, and check language — but it is a subordinate tool that cannot replace your argument, analysis, and final text.
You are responsible for every claim, citation, calculation, and sentence you submit — including the parts AI helped write. AI fabricates plausible-looking references; verify that each source exists before citing it.
Which uses are allowed, where the declaration goes in the manuscript, and how editors treat an undeclared use.
Task by task: what to hand to AI, what you must do yourself, and prompt wording you can copy straight across.
A classification of plagiarism and improper citation, useful for checking whether your own referencing crosses a line.
Standard international practice on authorship, conflicts of interest and data availability.
International students must describe their own contribution just as honestly when reporting the work.
Using AI for economic and business analysis: platforms and a working method
Grouped by purpose; all of these can be started free of charge (some require registration). AI can speed up gathering data, writing code, and tidying up phrasing, but the research question, the definitions behind the data, and the final judgment remain yours — each group states the part you must verify yourself.
Read long documents, explain models and formulas, and turn scattered notes into a structure. Upload a PDF and work through it asking “what does this step assume”.
Answers only within the material you upload and cites where it came from — useful when cross-checking a stack of papers or annual reports.
Run Python free in the browser: pandas for cleaning, statsmodels for regressions, matplotlib for charts, with nothing to install.
Public datasets with runnable notebooks; watching how others handled similar data is faster than a tutorial.
A cloud R environment for econometrics courses; ready-made models for text data.
Annual (10-K) and quarterly filings for US-listed companies. To analyse a company, start with the risk factors it discloses itself.
Official definitions of industry size, employment, and wages — the base for any market estimate.
Upload a table and get publication-standard charts; the restrained defaults suit paper figures.
For interactive dashboards; note that work on Tableau Public is visible to everyone by default.
Method: start from something you are actually doing
The same tools are used completely differently task by task. Pick one and see how the work divides — which step goes to the AI, and which step you must do yourself.
Whenever any of these tools is used in coursework or a submission, declare it with the four elements set out under ⑤ Academic Integrity & AI.
Economics activities and competitions before university applications
A general list covering essays, team competitions, olympiads, modelling, and business. Eligibility, format, and deadlines change every year — always follow the current announcement on the official site. Two or three done deeply are more convincing than ten sampled lightly.
The Royal Economic Society’s annual essay prize: short, with open questions — a good first economics essay.
Run by the Marshall Society in Cambridge; questions lean theoretical and reward clear, self-consistent argument.
Has an economics category, longer word limits, and tests reading and the handling of counter-arguments.
A history journal for secondary students; economic-history subjects are eligible, and the standard is close to an academic journal.
The US national economics challenge: micro, macro, and current-events rounds plus a final defence, in teams.
Play the monetary policy committee: recommend a rate using real data and answer questions on it — the closest thing to policy work.
Economics, financial literacy, and a business case, with national selection rounds.
Business and marketing cases — practice at explaining analysis to a non-specialist audience.
A modelling report on a real social problem completed over one weekend; economic and policy questions are common.
Has a behavioural and social sciences category that accepts empirical economics research.
Public data competitions for practice in empirical and predictive work; entries go straight into a research portfolio.
A peer-reviewed journal for secondary students that accepts empirical social science, with specific referee comments.
Wharton’s global high school investment competition and summer courses; requires a full investment strategy and client report.
Entrepreneurial: a business concept plus feasibility analysis, with weight on user validation and unit economics.
A UK economics summer course, useful as systematic catch-up — keep courses and competitions distinct in your own record.
This site: start from an official question and work up the graded pathway to a publishable manuscript.
WYE is not affiliated with, partnered with, or endorsed by any of the above, and does not handle registration for them. For anything with a fee, check the cost and refund rules yourself.
Economics institutions to apply to, read, and visit
Three uses, kept apart: international organisations that take interns and run youth programmes; think tanks and research institutes whose reports are worth citing; and centres and museums you can visit in person. Age and degree requirements vary widely — most internships require enrolment at undergraduate level or above, so read the eligibility rules before preparing anything.
Summer internships and the Young Professionals Program; public events such as the Youth Summit are usually free to register for.
Economics internships and research assistant posts, normally requiring graduate enrolment.
Policy research internships open to undergraduates, with high language requirements.
Internships and volunteer posts across agencies; DESA is the most relevant to economic and development questions.
The research assistant (RA) programme — one of the main research routes after an economics undergraduate degree.
Regional Fed research departments and education programmes; several Feds hold open days for students.
Internships and research programmes, plus economics teaching resources for students on its site.
The working paper library: one of the most-used frontier sources when writing a literature review.
Policy commentary and research reports; internships open in several rounds a year.
International economics and trade policy, with high-quality charts and data appendices.
Labour economics working papers and data resources.
Short policy commentary by European economists — a fast way into the argument on a topic.
Money and payment systems, free to enter, with group visits by appointment.
Monetary history and central bank functions, with guided tours.
The European Central Bank’s visitor centre in Frankfurt; book in advance.
Financial history collections and online exhibitions — usable source material for chapter activities.
All of the above is public information published by the institutions themselves; eligibility, opening hours, and booking follow their official sites. WYE does not handle applications and is not affiliated or partnered with any of them.
Building a research identity on Google Scholar
A Google Scholar profile lets others find your work by name and makes your own research trail traceable. It assumes one thing: that you have real public output — published papers, working papers, conference presentations, or public reports at a stable address. Until then, make the work first; the profile is only its index.
- Published papers, student journal articles, conference or seminar papers
- Working papers at a stable address: an institutional page, OSF Preprints, or Zenodo (which issues a DOI)
- Fix how you write your name and affiliation from the first paper onwards, and never vary it
- Sign in with an address you will keep; add your school address where you have one, so the profile shows a verified affiliation
- Use exactly the name you publish under, and give your affiliation and homepage accurately
- List 3–5 specific research interests (“labour economics”, “housing policy”), never something as broad as “economics”
- Make the profile public, or nobody can find it; turn off automatic additions and confirm manually, so papers by people with your name are not merged in
- Clear out duplicates and wrongly merged namesakes regularly, and merge versions of the same paper
- Register an ORCID (a unique researcher identifier) and enter it whenever you submit
- In economics, also create a RePEc / IDEAS author profile — more widely used inside the field
- Turn on alerts: follow keywords and authors, and let Scholar’s notifications replace aimless searching
The features and interfaces of Google Scholar, ORCID, and RePEc are decided by those platforms; this page describes general practice only. For integrity requirements see ⑤ Academic Integrity & AI.
The AEA: what it is, and what students can join
The American Economic Association (AEA), founded in 1885, is the principal professional society for economics in the English-speaking world: it publishes the American Economic Review and other journals, maintains EconLit and the randomised controlled trial registry, sets the discipline’s professional and ethical standards, and co-hosts the ASSA annual meeting each January.
For students it has two kinds of value: a large body of learning and research resources open to everyone, and a few formal programmes that require enrolment or selection. The two are listed separately below, so that “joining the AEA” is not mistaken for a credential — membership is, in substance, a subscription and the right to attend.
Once you have joined WYE, AEA student membership fees, ASSA registration, and related costs can be applied for as a waiver or subsidy. Funds are limited and each request is reviewed against the available places and its purpose; approved costs are paid directly by WYE or reimbursed against receipts, never by personal transfer.
About $25 a year · fully claimable
About $60–100 · fully claimable
Proposed cap $500 per person · on request
Proposed 10 a year · reviewed in two rounds
Recent papers written up in about a thousand plain words — the least effortful way into the research frontier.
Contents and abstracts of the AER, JEL, and the four AEJs are public; JEL survey articles are especially good for entering a new field.
Charts and lesson plans usable directly in chapter activities or class discussion.
Pre-registration plans for real experiments — read them to learn how a research design is written.
A summer research training programme for undergraduates preparing for an economics PhD; requires mathematical preparation and includes funding.
CSWEP’s undergraduate programme and mentoring scheme; its event information is open to all students.
Mentoring and research support for minority students, including dedicated sessions at the annual meeting.
The official route to a PhD: the mathematics course list, RA experience, references, and application timing.
Every January, with hundreds of sessions and poster presentations; student registration is cheaper and some sessions are open online.
The listing board for academic and policy posts; read it to see what research jobs actually require.
Short specialist courses after the meeting; slides and recordings are often released afterwards.
Student membership includes journals and the right to attend; it is not an academic credential or title.
The discipline’s general requirements for research conduct and professional exchange.
How funding sources and interests should be disclosed on submission.
What empirical papers must submit alongside the text — the best standard to hold student empirical work to.
The professional index for economics; most school libraries subscribe, so use your institutional login.
Secondary students generally do not meet the enrolment requirements of programmes such as AEASP, but the resources in the first and fourth columns above are entirely open. WYE is not affiliated with, partnered with, or endorsed by the AEA; eligibility and rates follow the official announcements for the year.
All external resources above are free public resources from their institutions (some require registration), linked to official sites. WYE has no affiliation, partnership, or endorsement relationship with them. For international-student practical training rules, see the CPT / OPT Guide. If a reading will not open, or you need an offline copy, register a WYE account and download the archived version from the forum library. Corrections, dead links and suggestions for new resources go to research@worldyoungeconomist.org.
Put it to use: view the WYE Essay Prize →