How to assess African poverty? The Afrobarometer provides some answers that generated several perplexing questions. The African Development Bank tells us that growth rates for many African nations have been a robust 4.8%. However, the Afrobarometer has concluded that in…
After Hurricane Sandy struck my NJ area, a physician friend told me that, with no refrigeration, her vaccine supply spoiled. Imagine her temporary problem as a permanent condition in the developing world. Lack of dependable electricity affects vaccines and the ability…
Our story starts in Russia with McDonald’s French Fry problem. Planning to open the first Moscow McDonald’s in 1990, they realized Russian potatoes were too little. Yes, they tasted good. But the fries would be tiny–not like a McDonald’s French…
For the first quarter of 2009, GDP declined at a 5.5% rate and, at 7.6% during January, unemployment was rising. With the economy in a tailspin, policy makers wanted to act quickly. Primarily split along party lines, the Congress responded with…
Should government subsidize a railroad? Our story starts during the 1970s when you could fly from New York to Washington, D.C. on the Eastern shuttle. Eastern left hourly (!) and guaranteed a seat to everyone who showed up for the…
For laughing and learning this TED talk is wonderful. Having digitized 15 million books, Google enabled us to access a mammoth body of knowledge. However, just reading the entries from the year 2000, without eating or sleeping, absorbing 200 words…
Can you convince a Lubbock, Texas cotton farmer (or his Congressman) to forgo his (maybe $150,000) cotton subsidy? Probably not. After all, these U.S. government payments let him profitably compete in world markets. Correspondingly, would China say yes to a…
econlife®
Connecting economics with everyday life.
Located at the intersection of current events, history, and economics, econlife® slices away all of the layers that make economics boring and complex. We like economics and we would like for you to like it too.
