If there are 122 men for every 100 women, how do you find a wife? According to a Columbia University professor, in China, you save. Economists have been asking why Chinese households save so much̵…
Kindergarten Matters
Several months ago, we asked if law school was a good investment. Now we can ask the same question about kindergarten. Saying that adult outcomes count while test scores do not, Harvard economist Raj …
Mortgage Backed Securities (Insecurities)
NPR’s Planet Money has been looking for the people behind a mortgage backed security. The story, almost like a page turner mystery, began with a $1,000 purchase. With $1,000, Planet Mo…
Consumer Financial Protection
I have been curious about why the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (BCFP), established by the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, is an independent bureau within the Federal Reserve. While I …
A Chocolate Squeeze
One person might have purchased enough cocoa to make 5 billion chocolate bars. And, he is not even in the candy making business. Instead, he is doing what financial speculators have tried to do for ce…
Burgernomics
The Big Mac Index is out again. Not much has changed. Norway’s Big Macs are most expensive and Chinese Big Macs are cheap. What do Big Mac prices tell us? Starting with an average U.S. price&nbs…
Institutionalized Trust
The production path of a pair of Levi’s stonewashed 501 jeans could have started in a Mississippi Delta cotton farm, continued with a North Carolina fabric weaver, and included the Dominican Rep…
Green Jeans
Reading about a new Eco Index started me thinking about competition. The Eco Index is somewhat comparable to the Energy Star rating created by the EPA in 1992. For appliances, Energy Star ratings conv…
Wages and Floors
A writer for The Baltimore Sun recently said that, “A ‘new living wage’ will make Baltimore City no more livable than stilettos will make Sen. Barbara Mikulski a forward for the WNBA…
China's Wages
Because I am still reading Peter Hessler’s Country Driving A Journey Through China, I related a recent NY Times article to his wonderful descriptions of an expanding transportation infrastr…