Behavioral Economics

February 2, 2014

The Reason That Certain Quarterbacks Earn More

A 3.2 difference in a facial symmetry score can mean an extra $378,000 in  pay for a quarterback. According to research from economist David Berri on […]

January 31, 2014

Why Do Young Adults Live With Their Parents?

In Slovakia, Bulgaria, Greece, Malta and Italy, young people, age 25-34, live with their parents. But not in Denmark, Finland Sweden, and Norway. Below you can see the country […]

January 30, 2014

Have We Halved the Deficit?

In the State-of-the-Union, President Obama said, “Our deficits–cut by more than half.” Looking at the federal deficit as a percent of GDP, we can say that the […]

January 21, 2014

The Trade-Offs of Prolonging Life

From guest blogger, Mariana Do Carmo, student at Yale University. What if prolonging life results in prolonging not only your suffering but also that of others? […]

January 15, 2014

The Green Blog: Why Japan Might Face a Demographic Crisis

By Madeleine Vance, guest blogger and student at Kent Place School. As of late, younger Japanese citizens are choosing to live the single life rather than […]

January 13, 2014

Marrying Up in China

“There is an opinion that A quality guys will find B quality women, B  quality guys will find C quality women, and C quality men will find D quality women…The people left […]

January 6, 2014

The Invention That Started to Close the Gender Gap

Worrying that labor saving devices would replace her, Downton Abbey’s cook, Mrs. Patmore, was not pleased with the new electric mixer that arrived in her kitchen […]

January 4, 2014

Do You Live in a Popular State?

Listening to Bloomberg news the other morning, I heard that Atlas Van Lines just came out with their annual migration study. The radio report said New […]

January 3, 2014

Income Inequality Questions

Seeing economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty’s favorite graph of the year at Ezra Klein’s Wonkblog, I thought of Benoit Mandelbrot. The father of fractal geometry, Dr. […]

October 22, 2013

Restaurant Economics: How to Make 1500 Meals a Day

At 2 am, converging at the delivery entrance of Balthazar in NY’s SoHo are mussels from New Zealand, russet potatoes from Idaho, steak from the Midwest and chicken breast […]

May 16, 2012

Learning From the Low End

Sometimes it’s better to be at the bottom than the top. Explaining, Harvard’s Clay Christensen starts his story with the huge integrated steel firms and ends […]

November 28, 2011

The First Credit Default Swap

Some of the euro zone’s problems actually started with the Exxon Valdez oil spill. After the 1989 Exxon Valdez calamity, when an Alaska jury said that […]