Resources for economic educators from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Abstract

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has a long history of providing economic and financial information to the public that continues today, although the format, delivery, and amount of information have changed over the years. Today, the St. Louis Fed provides Web-based data and information services, including FRED® and FRASER®, and publications, online courses, videos, podcasts, and much more that cover a wide array of economic topics. All these materials provide opportunities to engage students and enhance instruction in college classrooms.

Keywords:

• Economic education
• economics
• education
• teaching
• teaching of economics

JEL code:

• A1

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge Katrina Stierholz and George Fortier for their review and insights.

Notes

1. https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2

2. https://geofred.stlouisfed.org

3. http://alfred.stlouisfed.org

4. ALFRED, which stands for Archival FRED, stores past vintages of FRED series. With ALFRED, users can find the original observations for a data series before they were revised; series can be searched and selected for a given date and graphed according to how that observation has changed over time with subsequent releases and other types of revisions.

5. FRED has been incorporated into textbooks published by Pearson, MacMillan, Cengage, and McGraw-Hill. FRED applications for teaching also have been featured in modules at the Starting Point (http://serc.caelton.edu/econ/fred) (Carleton College n.d.) and in JEE articles on courses in teaching intermediate macroeconomics and financial economics (Méndez-Carbajo 2015).

6. https://www.stlouisfed.org/∼/media/Education/Lessons/pdf/FRED-GDP-Stacking.pdf

7. https://www.stlouisfed.org/∼/media/Files/PDFs/Education/Lessons/Creating-and-Analyzing-a-Binary-Map-GeoFRED.pdf

8. https://www.stlouisfed.org/∼/media/Education/Lessons/pdf/GeoFRED-Mapping-an-Oil-Boom.pdf

9. The resources discussed in this article are limited to content found on St. Louis Fed Web sites. However, each November, the St. Louis Fed hosts a free conference for professors: “Tips and Tools for Teaching College-Level Economics.”

10. If instructors are not interested in monitoring student progress, they may have students access the “consumer” version of the online courses which contain the same content but without the tracking features of the IMP.

11. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/

12. https://www.stlouisfed.org/legacy_assets/education_resources/assets/lesson_plans/BarbieLaborForce.pdf

13. https://www.stlouisfed.org/∼/media/Education/Lessons/pdf/Historical-Inquiry-with-75-Years-of-American-Finance.pdf

14. In addition to Page One Economics and Economic Synopses, the St. Louis Fed also offers the Review, The Regional Economist, and On the Economy Blog. The Review is a quarterly research journal that covers a variety of important economic topics. The Regional Economist is a quarterly publication aimed at an engaged, nonacademic audience with articles that address regional, national, and international economic issues. The On the Economy Blog features relevant commentary, analysis, research, and data from economists at the St. Louis Fed written for a broad audience.

15. https://www.stlouisfed.org/education/page-one-economics-classroom-edition

16. http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/es/