The latest issue of CHEER (Computers in Higher Education Economics
Review) Virtual Edition is now online. We apologise for the difficulties
which have delayed its appearance.

http://www.economics.ltsn.ac.uk/cheer/ch15_1/contents.htm

From the editorial by Guy Judge:


This issue of CHEER has the usual mix of papers, short notes, conference
reports and software reviews. As has become customary in CHEER, there
are papers about the use of spreadsheets in economics teaching - but I
think all three of these papers in this issue take us forward to a new
level. Ross Guest describes how he uses Microsoft Excel and its Solver
Add-In to teach undergraduate students about macroeconomic stabilisation
policy via simulations with the Taylor-Romer model. He shows us that it
is quite possible to introduce beginning students to the issues faced by
policy makers in today's world, using implementations of recently
developed models which are both simpler and more realistic than the
traditional IS-LM-AS ones.

Eric Naevdal also exploits the Microsoft Excel Solver Add-In, showing
how (small) optimal control problems can be modelled and solved. Two
problems are used to illustrate his approach: one relating to real
investment (a linear model) and one concerning fisheries management (a
non-linear model).

Jocelyn Paine and Andrew Ramsden tackle the problem of how to publish
spreadsheets on the World Wide Web. They show how their Model Master
toolkit can be used to prepare, edit and run spreadsheet applications on
the Web. They illustrate their approach using as a case study the
Housing Market model, which is part of the Virtual Learning Arcade
available at Biz/ed.

Chris Elven, Jean Soper and Simon Price describe the new BusEcon
software, the latest creation of the WinEcon team. Here again we have
software that has been designed to run inside a web browser, or via a
Managed or Virtual Learning Environment such as Blackboard or WebCT. The
authors explain how the new software has been developed to address the
comments made by users of earlier WinEcon software, both in terms of
content and delivery.

There are two software reviews in this CHEER. Ron Shone puts the latest
version of TK Solver though its paces with a nice moral hazard problem
used as an illustration. It is interesting how many cross-connections
there seem to be in this issue - the review shows how TK Solver can be
used with Excel and how results can be exported to HTML format. Our
other review is by Ins Herrero and Sean Pascoe. They examine some of the
stochastic frontier and DEA software and discuss its use in the
estimation of technical efficiency.

With news of recent developments at SOSIG from Debra Hiom and a full
report of the computing sessions at the recent ASSA meetings in Atlanta
from Jean Soper and Inna Pomorina, there is plenty of food for thought
in this issue of CHEER. I hope you will find it interesting and
informative. I certainly did as I read the papers myself, both when they
were first submitted and after they had been amended in the light of
referees' reports.



--
Martin Poulter, Web Development Officer, Economics LTSN
http://www.economics.ltsn.ac.uk/

Based at the Institute for Learning and Research Technology
University of Bristol, BS8 1HH
http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/