Weekly Economic News Roundup and misleading performance metrics
Behavioral Economics
Why Metrics Can Be Misleading

We can wind up with misleading metrics when the number we use as a goal becomes the incentive that distorts output decisions.

Central bank digital currencies
Money and Banking
What Central Banks Could Do To Our Cash

As more nations experiment with central bank digital currencies, we could see less cash, fewer banks, and maybe some unintended consequences.

federal spending projections
Taxes and Spending
Why Federal Spending Is Tough to Predict for Entitlement Programs

Looking back at Medicare and Medicaid, we can see why there are several versions of spending projections for the American Families Plan.

paternity leave
Households
Why We Need Bigger Cars

The U.S. birth rate has been gliding downward. Per thousand women, aged 15 to 44, the general fertility rate dipped from 60.1 in 2018 to a provisional 56.8 during the end of 2020: Correspondingly, remaining at 20 percent, there is…

U.S. China Trump trade deal
Trade & Comparative Advantage
A China Trade Deal Update

Tariffs and trade deals can have unintended consequences. The Trump tariff war was not supposed to send jobs to China. However, Tesla responded in 2018 to China’s 25% retaliatory tariff on U.S. autos with a quickly completed plant in Shanghai.…

Weekly Economic News Roundup and library late fees
Regulatory Policy
The Unexpected Side of Library Late Fees

While library late fees are supposed to be incentives that encourage us to return books, instead they have unintended consequences.

Chinese tariffs
What's Trending
The Little-Known Impact of Chinese Tariffs

Whereas the headlines tell us all about the impact of Chinese tariffs on the prices of U.S. goods, there is a hidden side that they have not mentioned.

plastic bag bans
Economic Thinkers
The Unintended Consequences of Plastic Bag Bans

Although plastic bag bans do help the environment, they also create unintended consequences that might make them less desirable.

Weekly economic news roundup and award incentives
The Market System
When Awards Give Us More or Less Than We Expect

While awards are all about recognition, inspiration, and appreciation, sometimes they are not exactly what we expect them to be.

Weekly Economic News Roundup and guaranteed income
What's Trending
When Free Money Didn’t Do What It Was Supposed To Do

The preliminary results for Finland’s two-year guaranteed income experiment appears to have created more questions than it answered.

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