What Economists Say On Valentine’s Day

Since it’s Valentine’s Day, let’s take a look at what economists might say.

Economic Valentines

Several Federal Reserve Banks offered these possibilities:

San Francisco Fed

• “My love is elastic; my commitment too big to fail.”

Atlanta Fed

• “Being with you hikes my pulse by several basis points.”

Philadelphia Fed

• “My initial projections never forecast someone like you would be in my next quarter.”

Richmond Fed

• “Your equation is deriving me crazy.”
• “Roses are red; A sign of true love; On that, no dissent; Whether hawk or dove.”

Meanwhile, economist Justin Wolfers suggested the following:

• “Like fiat money, our love is built on trust.”
• “I’ll be your lover of last resort.”

In addition, as economists, we know that sometimes a graph says it all:

Production Possibilities

Beyond the maximum, a dot outside the curve is usually impossible:

Marginal Returns

And here, we are avoiding diminishing marginal returns:

Or a cartoon comes in handy.

Marginal Utility

A cartoon can display the unlikelihood of increasing marginal utility:

Venn Diagram

Or a Venn Diagram could be an economic Valentine:

Our Bottom Line: Happy Valentine’s Day!

My sources and more: While some of our economic Valentines came from Freaknomics and xkcd, the cleverest examples were from Liz Fosslien. Also, in different ways, econlife has looked sent our Valentine’s message in the past, here and here. Please note  that our featured image is from The Atlantic.