Macroeconomics

October 14, 2015

A Nobel Message on Health and Wealth

The 2015 winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, Angus Deaton studied inequality through health and wealth and micro and macroeconomics.

October 5, 2015

The Connection Between Your Credit Score and Your Love Life

Because credit card scores predict trustworthiness and financial distress, they indicate whether a co-habitation relationship will be long lasting.

October 2, 2015

The Importance of Accurately Estimating When We Will Die

Retirement savings and income depend on the person's prior income, longevity, the macroeconomic environment, Social Security and other entitlement programs.

September 30, 2015

Part 1: Understanding the Student Loan Crisis

The characteristics of the student loan crisis include a high default and delinquency rate, huge amounts of money and a personal and macroeconomic impact.

September 22, 2015

Next Week’s Budget Problems

Always contentious, the federal budget needs to be approved by October 1st or a continuing resolution needs to enable discretionary federal spending.

September 16, 2015

Bringing The Martian Down to Earth

For pure enjoyment The Martian is a good read but also it helps us recognize how travel to Mars has and will have positive externalities on earth.

September 15, 2015

Why Doing Good is Not Always Easy

By recognizing the tradeoffs of recycling, preserving endangered species and improving world health, doing good could become more productive.

September 14, 2015

Part 2: How the Middle Income Trap Could Catch China

While some high middle income economies have slowed down and then accelerated again, using World Bank criteria, China's economic growth is tough to predict.

September 13, 2015

Part 1: The Trap That China Wants to Avoid

Currently slowing down, China's economic growth might be challenged by the middle income trap that has caught Brazil but not Taiwan or Malaysia.

September 1, 2015

What Our Food Says About Us

Because middling food like hamburgers is consumed by most people in the affluent West, what we eat does not necessarily reflect inequality or social status.

August 30, 2015

Why a Life Needs a Price Tag

Although it seems callous, for safety regulation like speed limits and for victims' compensation like 9/11 we need to quantify the value of a life.

August 25, 2015

Using a Fat Tail to Describe Stock Market Risk

When the unexpected occurs and changes our view of stock market risk, we call it a black swan or fat tail because it is far from the mean of a bell curve.