In 2020, China will have implemented a social score program that will use behavioral inputs to decide which goods and services residents can access.
How to Make Kids Smarter (And Also Help the GDP)
While superstition tells us that babies born during the Year of the Dragon will have more success and power, economists look at human capital investment.
What Amazon Wants For Its HQ2
Our story starts with one of the transistor’s inventors. According to a Wired article, William Shockley is the reason that Silicon Valley grows chips instead of apricots. Although Shockley Semiconductor failed, its employees created a local diaspora of techies. Similar…
Looking at Invisible Labor
While a diplomat negotiates a treaty and a singer records music, few of us recognize the invisible labor that made their work possible.
Weekly Roundup: From Overbooked Flights to Immigration Fallacies
This week’s economic news summary included unexpected insight from credit scores, the natural resource curse, and what the bacon cheeseburger can tell us.
Why Cheap Oil Can Be a Curse
Illustrated by the impact of cheap oil, the natural resource curse hits countries that have disproportionately focused economic activity on one industry.
The Most Expensive Way to Make a Chicken Sandwich
In a chicken sandwich are ingredients from around the world that one person can create but the price system gathered them for us at the local supermarket.
Alcohol, Marijuana or Tobacco: Which is Most Harmful?
When government miscalculates the negative externalities of substances like marijuana and alcohol, they waste land, labor, capital, time and money.
The Ebola Impact on Economic Health
More than the disease itself, ebola’s GDP impact from aversion behavior is rippling through West Africa domestically and in international trade.
Bedtime Stories… About the Economy.
From statistics and a satellite image of the world at night, we can see that developing countries lack the electrification they need for economic growth.
