Whether ranking baseball team fans or a country’s unemployment and inflation rates, misery indexes can tell us about people’s happiness.…
Economic Ideas
Much more than money, economics is about tradeoffs. Thinking economically involves cost and benefit, marginal analysis and seeing that there is no free lunch. Econlife tries to convey these economic ideas, which serve as the foundation of economics and help people make decisions personally, professionally and as voters.
Throwback Thursday: Remembering Standard Oil When We Look Forward to Amazon
#TBT: Today’s Throwback Thursday looks back to why Standard Oil was divided into 34 companies by the Supreme Court in 1911 and then forward to Amazon.…
How An Elite College Determines Your Future
Students and their parents might be surprised that a diploma from an elite college might not have the life-changing impact they expect.…
How We Spend Our Money
By looking at one hundred years of consumer spending history, we can see how our food, housing, and clothing reflected our growing affluence.…
Six Handy Facts to Know on Tax Day
On this tax day, let’s look at six handy tax facts that range from how to un-pay a tax, to the best tax act, to how U.S. taxes compare with Europe’s.…
Doing a Fractal Zoom Into Our Yearly Pay
Depending on whether you look at national statistics or the numbers on a company basis, employee median pay can look very different.…
How Shopping For Yogurt is Like Buying a Car
Recent research explains that our yogurt choice fatigue at the supermarket is rather similar to what we experience when buying a car.…
Banking on Marijuana
Reflected by duffle bags filled with cash, marijuana’s financial services problems demonstrate why we need banks and other financial intermediaries.…
The Market Value of a College Sports Program
In addition to March Madness brackets, we could have used a college sports program valuation to rank the market value of each team.…
What Chuck E. Cheese Teaches Us About Money
When Chuck E. Cheese changed the kinds of payment cards that kids and their parents used for games and food, they created new spending incentives.…