When we look back to New Year’s and keeping our resolutions, we can use the commitment devices that come in handy at all times.
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.
Where We Need No Cash
Looking for a cashless economy, our first destination would be Sweden to see the upside and its unintended consequences.
Why There’s No Such Thing As a Free Ad
Considering the cost of ad-free streaming video, we are nudged in opposite directions by incentives that relate to behavioral economics.
What a Behavioral Economist Might Say About the Barbie Snub
Noting the Oscar nominations that top-grossing film “Barbie” did not get, we can ask if the film industry patriarchy was the reason.
How Should We Measure Our Well-Being?
While the Gross Domestic Product is our main measure of our well-being, we can ask if a GDP alternative would do a better job.
Where Golden Visas Create Unintended Consequences
Created with the best intentions, instead, countries’ Golden Visas wound up with undesirable unintended consequences.
Why the Moon Race Reminds Us of Instacart
In a new moon race this year, five private companies’ lunar landers were supposed to transport NASA devices to the moon.
Why Subscriptions Might Never End
Behavioral economics can explain why forgotten subscriptions have become an increasingly typical phenomenon.
Why Netflix Makes Choosing Easier
Netflix makes choosing a movie easier because we get exhausted from contemplating countless possibilities.
Why We Want a New Kind of Ice
Knowing that we can find entrepreneurs in the most unexpected places, we should look in Dubai’s bars for glacial ice cubes.