Our weekly roundup includes how productivity affects music industry writers, the surprising impact of cheap oil and how tech shapes what the superrich earn.…
The Cost of Free Tuition
Raising college enrollment with free tuition might have unintended consequences that offset the benefits for the economy, businesses and individuals.…
Weekly Roundup: From Robot Servers to Shrimp Farmers
Our everyday economics includes wages, externalities, productivity, income, tradeoff, taxes, fiscal policy, gender, human capital and comparative advantage.…
How Much Your Sleep Costs You
Personal income relates to how long we sleep. Less sleep can diminish the productivity that brings a higher wage. But also, less sleep means more work time.…
Why Starbucks Coffee Costs More in California
When Starbucks says it’s raising prices, the increases depend on the U.S. location because of the difference in purchasing power parity.…
Weekly Roundup: 6 Mysteries
Our everyday economic stories involve participation rates, human capital, signaling, ROI, money, price, austerity, personal income, monopoly and bubbles.…
A Mystery: Trying to Find the Middle Class
While everyone refers to the middle class and most of us say we are in the middle class, few know the characteristics of the group to which they refer.…
The Mystery of Why Grads From 4 Year Colleges Earn More
It is a mystery whether college matters because it creates better human capital or creates signals that indicate graduates completed a long-term task.…
State By State Gender Pay Gaps
At 15 cents, the gender wage gap is smallest in Vermont and Nevada. It expands to 36 cents in Wyoming. Comparing all women to all men, though, is tricky. We have the single female professionals who ha…
Looking at Labor
What if a physical trait meant you will earn $230,000 less during a lifetime? According to one study, a person who was in the bottom one-seventh for looks earned 10% to 15% less than peopl…