My Take is a blog written by John Van Slyke Jr. that contains commentaries about current events and issues in national economic policy and political economics.

Working papers are documents and exhibits produced by staff members of Morgan Hall Consulting and Morgan Hall Institute. They are free for personal use.

This area contains links to what we consider to be reliable and useful sources of data about countries outside of the United States.

Caveats:

All data have a number of key issues associated with them:

1. is the data a fact or not. Facts are provable. Everything else is just that, everything else.
2. what are the data items, actuals or estimates.
3. if estimates, by whom and for what purposes.
4. when and how they were collected
5. how the data were processed, including any screening and exclusions
6. whether there is any bias at the source of the data
7. whether the data are comparable to other data from the same source and other sources
8. whether any credible and reputable researcher or analyst uses the data
9. whether the data is in useful formats, including Excel files and PDF formats that can be used directly by software applications with minimal font end processing

Finally, there is the most important issue of all. Do the data you are looking at represent the "best evidence" about some topic or issue. If not, then you would be destroyed under cross examination on a witness stand, and any decisions you, your clients, and your associates may be making will have a margin of error that may be greater than anyone realizes.

This area contains links to what we consider to be reliable and useful sources of data about countries outside of the United States.

Caveats:

All data have a number of key issues associated with them:

1. is the data a fact or not. Facts are provable. Everything else is just that, everything else.
2. what are the data items, actuals or estimates.
3. if estimates, by whom and for what purposes.
4. when and how they were collected
5. how the data were processed, including any screening and exclusions
6. whether there is any bias at the source of the data
7. whether the data are comparable to other data from the same source and other sources
8. whether any credible and reputable researcher or analyst uses the data
9. whether the data is in useful formats, including Excel files and PDF formats that can be used directly by software applications with minimal font end processing

Finally, there is the most important issue of all. Do the data you are looking at represent the "best evidence" about some topic or issue. If not, then you would be destroyed under cross examination on a witness stand, and any decisions you, your clients, and your associates may be making will have a margin of error that may be greater than anyone realizes.

As the complexity of decisions involving uncertainty increases, the number of choices, range of events, and ending values quickly explodes.

Several software products now exist that can be of great value to those responsible for creating analyses for decision makers.

One additional benefit of decision tree software is its usefulness in simply visualizing the combinations of choices and outcomes that can be involved in a decision.

Created by Sal Kahn, Khan Academy has become the world's premier website for learning about complex technical issues in a way that is easy to follow. Kahn Academy is the go-to source for students preparing for the SAT exam.

The founder of Kahn Academy is Sal Khan. Sal is a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School. He also has been a senior product line manager in Oracle and has been involved in a number of ventures in Silicone Valley.

Sal has created a number of highly informative explanations of economic and finance topics.