Economic Ideas

June 29, 2018

Why More Babies Were Born Nine Months After a Football (Soccer) Game

Because of events that range from football victories to electrical outages, birth rates can spike or fall nine months later.

June 28, 2018

The Missing Female Film Critics

The skewed race and gender of the film critics that review our top grossing movies might not express what a more diverse group would say.

June 26, 2018

How the EU and the U.S. Fought a Banana Trade War

With tariffs and quotas the weapons, the 1990s banana trade war between the European Union and the U.S. was a classic except for one key difference.

June 25, 2018

Breaking the First-Digit Law and Other Number Crimes

When the digits that appear frequently in national accounting figures, spreadsheets, and earnings reports are missing, then we can say we have suspicious numbers.

June 20, 2018

The Woman Who Wants a Moon Dust Market

Unless the U.S. government lets a woman in Tennessee keep and then sell her moon dust, it will remain a "priceless" national treasure with unknown value.

June 18, 2018

How Starbucks Coffee Bean Husks Are Like Perdue Chicken Paws

When previously worthless byproducts like coffee bean husks, chicken paws, and hog snouts became popular, we increased our economic efficiency.

June 17, 2018

Why We Needed to Retake the Marshmallow Test

After doing their own version of the marshmallow test, researchers from NYU and UC Irvine told us to look at the value of delayed gratification somewhat differently.