This week’s economic news summary includes the diner’s dilemma and marginal analysis, property rights in outer space, the Phillip’s Curve and unemployment.…
The Diner’s Dilemma: Should You Divide the Check Equally With Friends?
Like the tragedy of the commons, splitting a bill among friends at a restaurant involves an individual’s marginal benefit and the group’s marginal cost.…
Weekly Roundup: From Hot Hands to Sunk Costs
The behavioral economics ideas from our everyday economics are confirmation, expectations and projection bias, frames, temporal discounting and sunk costs.…
Explaining the Health Club Memberships We Don't Use
Behavioral economics explains that we sign up for health clubs and then don’t exercise because of unrealistic pre-commitment and upfront payment.…
The Bills in Detroit and Elsewhere
Whether looking at the Buffalo Bills unexpectedly traveling to Detroit, college or high school football, the marginal cost of travel is rising.…
The Surprising Impact of the Shot Clock On Basketball
This 60-foot shot is amazing. The game was between Shakopee and Hopkins, 2 Minneapolis-St. Paul area high school basketball teams. Playing a semifinal playoff, in quadruple overtime, Hopkins won 49-46…
The Cost of Conservation
By Madeleine Vance, guest blogger and student at Kent Place School. Saving water is supposed to allow us to cut down costs. For the drought-stricken city of Wichita Falls in Texas, this is not the cas…
Marginal Children
By Mira Korber, guest blogger. American births are on the decline; the number per year has fallen from 4.3 million (2007) to 4 million (2010), perhaps due to a shaky economic situation. However……
Stormy Issues
For Hurricane Irene relief, the debate is again about the debt. Let’s start with the Congress. Expressed by Texas Representative Ron Paul, government should not play a role because “intrus…
"Tweetquakes"
Sometimes Tweets travel faster than seismic waves. And then, what happens? In this wonderful webcomic from April 2010, an earthquake strikes, people Tweet, and within seconds, the news beats the tembl…