Ideas for new forums categories?

[David]

Looking to make this as useful as possible, please suggest some new forum categories.

[Jack Gannaway]

Something around government policy might be more helpful. Possibly broken down by government departments. I know this is not really convenient, given the joining up of lots of policies, and it might just result in departmental economists staying within their own forum categories.

[David Howdon]

Jack Gannaway said:

Something around government policy might be more helpful.

I think something around the general topics of government policy would make sense

Jack Gannaway said:

Possibly broken down by government departments. I know this is not really convenient, given the joining up of lots of policies, and it might just result in departmental economists staying within their own forum categories.

However I'm not sure that categorising this by government department really makes sense (not least because it would require a restructure every time their is a machinery of government change). Perhaps more sensible to have major topics based around the economic themes underlying government policy. For instance my current area of work is pensions. A topic on "pensions" might makes sense (it cuts across DWP, HMT and FSA at least and DBERR has an interest) or possibly even a wider one on "savings".

I'm not sure how much a departmental discussion forum would add - I can usually talk to my colleagues here relatively easily anyway.

[Jack Gannaway]

David,

I agree that government policy area makes more sense - restructuring could get rather annoying after a while.

While I don't necessarily think it is absolutely necessary, a departmental forum might be useful to save on tons of people being spuriously included in endless CC lists. Individuals could contribute to a debate if they wanted to, rather than having it shoved into their inbox. Also, if someone doesn't add you to a CC list then you don't know what's going on! If everything is out in the open on a forum then everyone can see all the ongoing discusions.

[Anish Acharya]

Current Economic Issues Forum? Discussing things like the current financial crisis etc. Maybe this could be a sub category within Macro!

[David]

Thanks.. all good ideas!

Current Economic Climate should serve for contemporary discussion

[Richard Simper]

Efficiency Analysis for all us applied microeconomists who still cant understand why other economists are wasting their time on PPP!!! Leave it alone and do something more interesting instead... like gardening...

[Robert Jump]

Maybe a methodology or philosophy of economics category?

[Ranjeeta Thomas]

One on health economics?

[Alex Selioutski]

I'd be very interested to participate in this one

[Samir]

I agree with Anish Acharya, I believe a discussion on the current financial crisis would be interesting. The sub sections could focus on the different ways the subject may be approached (Politics, Economics, Financial, etc...)

[Anand]

Hi all, just to add on many suggestion already made. I think there should be a theme on current crisis.

[Christian Winzer]

I agree that 'current issues' could be a useful category

Financial Markets might be another one - although there are already forums for several topics which are relevant in that context (e.g. behavioral economics, international trade) discussing them with application to this sector could provide a useful way of structuring discussions under the 'same roof'