Economic forecasting can frequently be inaccurate because of changing numbers and human bias or, as Yogi Berra reputedly said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
Business Cycles
How to Measure Our Misery
The economic way to demonstrate sadness is to look at misery indexes that use macro data to measure changes in our emotions.
Why Night Owls and Early Birds Affect the GDP
Determined genetically, our sleep preferences as night owls, morning larks or neither could affect our productivity at work.
How a Paper Jam is Like a Recession
Whether it’s the paper in your copier machine or the goods and services in a market economy, flows and jams can be rather similar.
How Your Dog is an Economic Indicator
Looking at New York City real estate prices and the dogs that households own, we can see a correlation and a quirky economic indicator.
What Super Bowl Ads Really Say
Ranging from Apple to Amazon, and Pets.com to Ameriquest, decades of Super Bowl ads can demonstrate some major turning points in the U.S. economy.
How the Movies Became Cool
An August release, The Shape of Water could be in theaters during hot summer weather because of the invention of air conditioning.
The Surprising Significance of Ping Pong
Perhaps correlated with ping pong table sales, the venture capital that goes to technology startups is concentrated in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Boston/NY/Washington D.C. corridor.
Why We Need to Pay Attention to Wobbly Plates
Perhaps comparable to Alphabet’s (Google’s) X subsidiary, the old AT&T’s Bell Labs produced invention that became breakthrough technology.
Where Life Is Better
When approximately 43,000 people in 38 countries look back to 1967, some say life is better but others do not. The Pew Research Center gathered their answers last spring. The most positive response came from Vietnam and India. The most…