Monday 15 April 2013

Acronyms

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

A few of my recent posts have included the use of acronyms for institutions, surveys etc. (HEFCE, HEIs,NSS). One reader of my blog has contacted me to say that I shouldn't assume that everyone knows what these acronyms relate to and, at least on the first occasion that I include them, I should spell them out in full, or possibly put in a link to a web page that provides that information. I think that is probably a fair point and it started me thinking about how many acronyms we come across in every day life, or in the more specialised area of higher education and in studying economics at degree level.

I assume that everybody knows by now that USE stands for the University of the South of England. Hopefully if I mention the BBC I won't have to spell that out in full. But I have tried to sort out a few acronyms under various categories that an economics lecturer or student ought to know about. If you think I have omitted any important ones please let me know.

Education related acronyms

1 HEFCE - or perhaps it should be hefce (Higher Education Funding Council) ; 2 UCAS (University and College Admissions Service) ; 3 HESA ( Higher Education Statistics Agency) ; 4 DfE (Department for Education) ; 5 HEI (Higher Education Institution) ; 6 CNAA (Council for National Academic Awards) ; 7 CATS (Credit Accumulation Transfer Scheme) ; 8 GNVQ (General Vocational Qualification) ; QAA (The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education) ; 9 UCE (University and College Union; 10 NSS (National Student Survey) ; 11 REF (Research Excellence Framework) ; 12 FTE (Full Time Equivalent) ; 13 SLA (Service Level Agreement) ;

Economics and business institutions etc.

1 IMF (International Monetary Fund) ; 2 OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) ; 3 WTO (World Trade Organization) 4 GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) ; 5 HMT (Her Majesty's Treasury) ; 6 OBR (Office for Budget Responsibility) ; 7 ECB (European Central Bank) ; 8 IFS (Institute for Fiscal Studies) ; 9 NIESR (National Institute of Economic and Social Research) ; 10 NBER (National Bueau of Economic Research - USA) ; 11 CBI (Confederation of British Industry) ; 12 IOD (Institute of Directors) ; 13 NEF (New Economics Foundation) ; 14 OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) 15 FSA (Financial Services Authority) (now replaced by the FCA - Financial Conduct Authority ).

Economics societies and associated services

1 RES (Royal Economic Society) ; 2 AEA (American Economic Association) ; 3 ASSA (Allied Social Science Association) ; 4 RFE (Resources for Economists on the Internet)

Economics Journals

1 EJ (Economic Journal) ; 2 AER (American Economic Review) ; 3 JEL (Journal of Economic Literature) ; 4 JEP (Journal of Economic Perspectives); 5 AEJ (American Economic Journal) 6 JSTOR ; 7 JPE (Journal of Political Economy) ; 8 QJE (Quarterly Journal of Economics) ; 9 RES or REStud (Review of Economic Studies) ; 10 REStats (Review of Economics and Statistics) 11 EHR (Economic History Review) ; 12 SJPE (Scottish Journal of Political Economy) ; 13 EER (European Economic Review) ; 14 EJLE (European Journal of Law and Economics) ; 15 IER (International Economic Review) ; 16 IJF (International Journal of Forecasting) ; 17 JOBES (Journal of Business and Economic Statistics) ; 18 JASA (Journal of the American Statistical Association) ; 19 JOES (Journal of Economic Surveys) ; 20 JRSS (Journal of the Royal Statistical Society) ; 21 JET (Journal of Economic Theory) ; 22 JEF (Journal of Economics and Finance) ; 23 JF (Journal of Finance) http://www.afajof.org/details/landingpage/2866131/About-the-JF.html ; 24 JLE (Journal of Law and Economics) ; 25 JMCB (Journal of Money, Credit and Banking) ; 26 JRS (Journal of Regional Science) ; 27 JTSA (Journal of Time Series Analysis) ; 28 OEP (Oxford Economic Papers ) ; 29 CJE (Cambridge Journal of Economics) ;30 SJE (Scandinavian Journal of Economics); 31 IREE (International Review of Economics Education) 32 CHEER (Computers in Higher Education Economics Review)

There is a full list of economics journals here --> http://www.oswego.edu/~economic/journals.htm

Newspapers 1 FT (Financial Times) ; 2 WSJ (Wall Street Journal)

Data sources

1 ONS (Office for National Statistics) ; 2 FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data - US) ; 3 PWT (Penn World Tables) ; 4 EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit)

There are links to lots of economics data sources on the rfe site.

Software

1 SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences or Statistical Product and Service Solutions) ; 2 Stata (Statistical Analysis)

There is a full list of statistics and econometrics software on the rfe site.

Economic concepts

1 AC (Average Cost) ; AVC (Average Variable Cost) ; 3 OLS (Ordinary Least Squares); 4 CES (Constant Elasticity of Substitution) ; 5 PACF (Partial Autocorrelation Function) ; 6 IROR (Internal Rate of Return) ; 7 NPV (Net Present Value) ; 8 RPI (Retail Price Index) ; 9 CPI (Consumer Price Index) ; 10 GDP (Gross Domestic Product) ; 11 GNP (Gross National Product); 12 VAT (Value Added Tax) ; 13 CBA (Cost-Benefit Analysis) ; 14 B2B (Business to business) ; 15 SME (Small and Medium size Enterprise)

Quiz

How many of these non-economics acronyms do you know?

1 HMSO, 2 DVLA, 3 GCHQ, 4 NATO, 5 JPEG, 6 KPMG, 7 OFSTED, 8 SATS, 9 TEFL, 10 YHA.

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