Economics
« Previous Entries Next Entries »Rape Statistics: 1 in 4?
Friday, September 11th, 2009My university recently hosted a forum on rape for female college students. They emphasized that rape is a serious issue on campus using statistics. Fact: 1 in 4 college women have either been raped or suffered attempted rape. At least that is what women’s centers at colleges around the United States claim. That’s scary high. Too […]
Hot Dog Pricing Paradox
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009Over Labor Day weekend I visited Chicago and spent Sunday afternoon watching Boston pummel the White Sox. Walking into the ballpark I had noticed a stand selling premium Chicago-style hot dogs with all of the fixings. While I was tempted, the ballpark level prices dissuaded me. Fortunately, on this particular day the ballpark was running […]
Lessons from My Laundromat
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009In the current hard economic times, most businesses have been lowering their prices. Burger King reduced the price of their daily specials from $4.50 to $3.99. Car companies are offering to forgive your monthly payments if you lose your job. Frito Lay is putting more chips in their bags for free. However, I’ve also noticed […]
Economics in Wired: Two Articles Worth Reading
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009I came across two recent articles in Wired that I found really interesting. Here’s a brief overview and commentary: Tech Is Too Cheap to Meter: It’s Time to Manage for Abundance, Not Scarcity It costs Netflix about a nickel to stream a 2 hour movie to your PC. Wired editor Chris Anderson argues that data […]
When Signaling sends the Wrong Signal
Monday, June 22nd, 2009Google became the world’s most popular search engine by radically increasing the relevance of search results. It was able to do so by rewarding sites that received a lot of links from other sites. Links from popular sites were worth more than links from obscure sites. The popularity, or rank, of a site became known […]
My Question for Twitter’s Founder
Sunday, June 14th, 2009The Freakonomics blog periodically solicits questions from it’s readers to ask prominent and interesting people. Most recently, Biz Stone, the cofounder of Twitter and entrepreneur responsible for Blogger and Xanga was featured . I submitted a question that was included in the interview. Below is my question and his response: How do you consistently get […]
Has the Internet Made Advertising Obsolete?
Friday, April 3rd, 2009Eric Clemons over at Tech Crunch argues so in this thought-provoking article. His points are: Consumers do not trust advertising. (References Dan Ariely of Predictably Irrational) Consumers do not want to view advertising Consumers do not need advertising The crux of his argument is that the internet has made information so widely available that advertising […]
It’s Not Always a Mask
Thursday, March 26th, 2009When Facebook came out, I was intrigued by how people presented themselves. Initially, membership was confined to university students. When crafting a profile, students knew their audience well. Pictures from last night’s party were okay. Divulging your secret love of Hanson was not. In the real world, people act differently around different groups of friends. […]
Education: An Inferior Good?
Monday, March 16th, 2009Last week, Obama spoke about education and argued that American children don’t go to school long enough. He said: We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed for when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of each day. Our children…spend over a […]
Libertarian Paternalism
Sunday, January 25th, 2009I just finished Nudge, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. These University of Chicago professors advocate “libertarian paternalism” which recognizes that people often act irrationally and recommends that governments “nudge” people to make better choices. In their own words: Libertarian paternalism is a weak, soft, and non-intrusive type of paternalism because choices are not blocked […]
« Previous Entries Next Entries »