Sources

If you're a working economist, or just an interested layman wanting to keep up with the cutting edge of the dismal science, the Economics Working Paper Archive (http://econwpa.wustl.edu) of St. Louis's Washington University is a treasure chest. The site features abstracts of hundreds of unpublished working papers by economists around the world; full papers are available for those with PostScript or Acrobat document readers (available for free on the World Wide Web). The 22 subject categories include currently hot areas such as experimental economics, game theory, and law and economics, as well as older favorites such as international finance and economic history.

The FBI Laboratory: An Investigation into Laboratory Practices and Alleged Misconduct in Explosives-Related and Other Cases, a report by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, is available on the World Wide Web (http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/fbilab1/fbil1toc.htm). The investigation, the result of accusations made by FBI scientist Frederic Whitehurst, examines the bureau's forensic procedures in the Oklahoma City bombing, the World Trade Center bombing, and a number of other high-profile cases. The result is a riveting, exhaustive, and familiar tale of bureaucratic bungling. "We did not," the investigators conclude in part, "substantiate the vast majority of…the allegations made by Whitehurst….We found, however, significant instances of testimonial errors, substandard analytical work, and deficient practices."

Two new free electronic resources are available for F. A. Hayek buffs. The first is a searchable archive of Hayek-related scholarship (http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/hayekl.html). The second is a listserv dedicated to scholarly discussions of the Nobel prize winner's legacy (to sign up, e-mail the message SUBSCRIBE Hayek-L <your first name><your last name> to [e-mail]).