Economics
Next Entries »Coffee Shop Discrimination
Monday, November 12th, 2007I’m always a little suspicious of research studies looking for discrimination in a competitive market. So, when I read Tim Hartford’s piece over at Slate examining research out of Middlebury College on whether coffee shops discriminate against women, I wanted to take a look at the study. Caitlin Myers from Middlebury College had five undergraduate […]
Merit Aid
Friday, November 9th, 2007Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a seminar by Joshua Goodman on “Who Merits Financial Aid? Massachusetts’ Adams Scholarship”. It was a refreshing surprise given the dull seminars I had attended earlier in the year. Goodman, a job market candidate at Columbia, analyzed the effects of a scholarship program in Massachusetts that awards students […]
Asymmetric Information: Car Trouble
Thursday, November 8th, 2007This past summer, I drove to Mt. Rainier to visit my sister who was working at the gift shop there. Outside of Puyallup, WA my car wouldn’t start. I took it to Sears and they informed me that I had a bad starter. They replaced the starter. It still wouldn’t start. Two days, an alternator, […]
Fair Trade Hypocrisy
Thursday, November 8th, 2007The cover story in the most recent copy of my campus magazine, Statements, highlights the Fair Trade movement. The article, by Sara Kentzler, begins: “Imagine farmers struggling every day to sell their crops. Their families go unfed, and for their young children school is an outlandish dream. The products these experienced farmers sell are of […]
Economics of Road Trips
Monday, November 5th, 2007I haven’t posted for the last few days because I was out-of-state competing in an ultimate frisbee tournament. I’m a member of my college’s club team. As a club team, we get very little financial support from the school and have to pay for traveling expenses out of pocket. After spending a very cold first […]
Rabbits on the Cover…
Friday, November 2nd, 2007…caught my attention when I was looking through the Economics section at Barnes and Noble last May. The book was More Sex is Safer Sex, by Steven Landsburg. In the bookstore, I made it through the first chapter which uses economic logic to support the title’s provocative claim. Landsburg argues that when conservative people with […]
Why We Thank Soldiers
Monday, October 29th, 2007Living in a state with a large agricultural community, I often see bumper stickers with slogans such as, “If You Ate Today, Thank a Farmer.” John Palmer over at EclectEcon captures why the economist in me is so repulsed by these messages. He eloquently writes: “Why should I thank people who, acting to maximize their […]
Why eBay is Doomed
Thursday, October 25th, 2007I have heard a number of complaints about eBay over the last few months: the site is being overrun by shady commercial listings, it’s more difficult to find relevant listings, and design changes are confusing. The company definitely is embracing change. In 2005, CEO Meg Whitman spearheaded the hasty and expensive acquisition of Skype. The […]
Why Your Meteorologist has a Shot at the Nobel in Economics
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007That might be a bit of a stretch, but meteorology and economics have a lot more in common then you might think. Both the youngest and oldest winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics were meteorologists before they were professional economists. Kenneth Arrow, the youngest to win, was a weather forecaster during his military service […]
Inviting Ridicule
Monday, October 22nd, 2007Children in England and Wales have been routinely weighed at school for the last two years. Now, parents of children as young as 5 will receive notification if their child is obese, reports the Times. When I was 6 years old, a routine eye screening caught my lazy eye while there was still time to […]
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