economics
How to spot a monopoly - Works in Progress Magazine
Competition makes capitalism work. A new method for measuring it may be the holy grail of economic regulation.
For one thing, looking at concentration at a national level can obscure what’s going on at the local level.
Even when concentration does rise, it’s not always bad for competition.
China’s unfair labor model is going global
China's low rights model is no longer a domestic labor issue but a systemic challenge to global labor standards, supply chain governance and fair market competition.
Why Georgia Tech Sold Its Biennial Georgia Home Game for $10M
The 119th edition of the Georgia–Georgia Tech annual rivalry game has turned into a neutral-site matchup, with the Yellow Jackets getting a big payday.
It’s the fifth of a six-game contract Georgia Tech signed with AMBSE to annually play one home contest at the NFL and MLS venue,
the $10 million payment would amount to roughly five times the revenue a normal home game would generate.
Classical Thermodynamics and Economics – Yuxi on the Wired
How to think like a classical thermodynamic-economist, delivered with many illustrations and some sci-fi metaphors. Particular emphasis on what traditional pedagogy gets wrong. Prerequisites: multivariate calculus and mathematical maturity.
The essay contains: three laws of thermodynamics, entropy, Helmholtz and Gibbs free energy, nonextensive entropy, Caratheodory’s axiomatic thermodynamics, Vladimir Arnold’s contact-geometric thermodynamics, Paul Samuelson’s area-ratio thermodynamics, Le Chatelier’s principle, chemical equilibrium…
entropy
How market design can feed the poor
America's largest non-profit had a broken distribution system. University of Chicago economists fixed it.
Ford and the Birth of the Model T
Ford’s status as a large-volume car producer began with the predecessor to the Model T: the Model N, a four-cylinder, two-seater car initially priced at $500. At the time, the average car in the US cost more than $2,000, and it seemed nearly unimaginable that a car with the…
What Declining Cardboard Box Sales Tell Us About the US Economy
Box demand touches nearly every industry, from flat-screen TVs to packaged food, all of which see sales fluctuate based on how flush shoppers feel.
Of Marx and Moloch: How My Attempt to Convince Effective Altruists to Become Socialists Backfired Completely
Why psychology explains politics better than politics explain psychology
That ‘cheap’ open-source AI model is actually burning through your compute budget
New research reveals open-source AI models use up to 10 times more computing resources than closed alternatives, potentially negating cost advantages for enterprise deployments.
Art Market Basics
This series covers the core parts of the art market.
Shorting Your Rivals: A Radical Antitrust Remedy - Marginal REVOLUTION
Conventional antitrust enforcement tries to prevent harmful mergers by blocking them but empirical evidence shows that rival stock prices often rise when a merger is blocked—suggesting that many blocked mergers would have increased competition. In other words, we may be stopping…
Firewood in the American Economy: 1700 to 2010 - Marginal REVOLUTION
Despite the central role of firewood in the development of the early American economy, prices for this energy fuel are absent from official government statistics and the scholarly literature. This paper presents the most comprehensive dataset of firewood prices in the United…
Why Are Homes in Western States So Expensive?
Earlier this month I came across the following graphic, originally posted on Reddit in 2022, showing the state of housing affordability in the US.
How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fab
For the last several decades, one avenue of technological progress has towered over nearly everything else: semiconductors.
Setting a Pricing Strategy Amid Ever-Changing Tariffs
There are options beyond simply raising your prices or absorbing extra costs.
Brian Potter on what he has learned writing Construction Phyics - Marginal REVOLUTION
Individual construction tasks have, on average, not gotten cheaper since at least the 1950s. Bricks haven’t gotten cheaper since the mid-19th century, despite massive improvements in brickmaking technology. Construction has a reputation for being slow to innovate, but…
Prediction market
What Do Pawn Shops Buy? Answered + Prices Ranges Detailed
What can you sell at a pawn shop? We explain what pawn shops buy, plus how to get the most money. Find price details for electronics, clothing, and more.
How PawnGuru Helps Sellers And Pawn Shops Compare Prices Online
Inside of a pawn shop / Photo Credit: PawnGuru Pawning something you own can be a major challenge. You want to get the highest amount for your item, but you don’t know which pawn shop will pay the most. Reality TV shows like “Hardcore Pawn” and “Pawn Stars” demonstrate how pawn…
The Economics of Pawn Shops
Pawn shops are America's lenders of last resort. But even for the same item, the amount pawn shops will loan you can vary more than 1,000%.
Opinion | He Cut a Secret Deal That Cemented U.S. Economic Power — And He Has a Lesson for Donald Trump
A forgotten Nixon-era negotiation offers urgent lessons for our new age of economic warfare.
Not everyone could have made the fraught decision to ration gasoline, that American lifeblood, and allocate scarce oil supplies to factories over motorists. But that’s what Simon did.
The Wild Economics Behind Ferrari’s Domination of the Luxury Car Market
Limiting production is helping to make its sports cars coveted—and the company the most valuable automaker in Europe
The Great Grocery Squeeze
How a federal policy change in the 1980s created the modern food desert
Mastering the Big 12 Data-driven Economic Concepts - DataScienceCentral.com
“If you want to change the game, change the frame.” The game has certainly changed with the data era, and maybe the most drastic change driven by data has occurred in economics, the foundation upon which our modern society is built and sustained. Understanding and mastering the…
Why did Venezuela’s economy collapse? - Economics Observatory
The Venezuelan economy has suffered from decades of disastrous economic policies – and more recently, from economic sanctions. The country has seen the largest ever decline in living standards outside war, revolution or the collapse of the state.
What to think about ranked choice voting?
That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one key segment: Game theory can help explain how ranked choice voting changes the behavior of candidates, as well as the elites who support them. Consider a ranked choice election that has five or six candidates. To win…
Information as a Universal Complement and Universal Substitute
Plus! Diff Jobs; Making a Market; Financial Innovation; IRL; Open-Ended Liabilities; Meme Stock Relapse
Chart: US sets new record with $71B in clean energy investment
In the first quarter of this year, private investors poured 40% more money into clean energy and electric vehicles than they did in Q1 2023.
The U.S. Economy Is Absolutely Fantastic
No, really.
The future of foundation models is closed-source
if the centralizing forces of data and compute hold, open and closed-source AI cannot both dominate long-term
The beauty of concrete
Why are buildings today simple and austere, while buildings of the past were ornate and elaborately ornamented? The answer is not the cost of labor.
The Rise and Fall of China’s Economic ‘Miracle’
China’s economy has reached a dead end. Getting out will mean more trade friction with the United States.
Paris F.C. Set Tickets To $0. Should Others Do the Same?
When Paris F.C. made its tickets free, it began an experiment into the connection between fans and teams, and posed a question about the value of big crowds to televised sports.
The economics of dollar stores
A visual explainer of the numbers behind America’s ubiquitous bargain-basement chains.
Economic Growth Makes Physical Stuff Cheap and Time Precious
Or: You Know The Economy is Good When You Can't Find a Babysitter
The marketplace of good and bad ideas
On why the free exchange of ideas is a complex breeding ground for truth, appealing falsehoods, and self-serving rationalisations.
Why is Diet Coke so expensive in 2023? - Vox
The economy, explained by your Diet Coke and soda prices, kind of.
Are you ‘loud budgeting’ or ‘doom spending’? Finance according to gen Z
US schools fall short on financial literacy. So a generation saddled with money woes has developed language of its own
Liberals Love Ranked-Choice Voting. Will Conservatives?
Ranked-choice voting could be on the November ballot in four states, a sign of the system’s rising popularity. Most conservatives have opposed it. But some say that could be changing.
What Happened to the US Machine Tool Industry?
Machine tools – machines that cut or form metal – are the heart of industrial civilization.
Building an economy simulator from scratch
by Thomas SIMON
The Rutters of Athens County
An Appalachian school district’s daring experiment in economic integration.
Appalachia’s North–South Divide
Economic dynamism is vaulting the southern portion of the vast region ahead of its northern cousin.
Dollar General has racked up $21M in OSHA penalties since 2017. It’s paid $
The retailer discounts the importance of in-store safety, the regulatory agency says, and was named a severe violator this fall.
The Market for Lemons
"The Market for 'Lemons': Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism" is a widely cited seminal paper in the field of economics which explores the concept of asymmetric information in markets. The paper was written in 1970 by George Akerlof and published in the Quarterly…
An alternate ending to the tragedy of the commons
I recently read Elinor Ostrom’s Governing the Commons and have been evangelizing it so enthusiastically that I figured I’d do a quick…
The Power of the Stora Rör Swimming Association and Other Local Institution
Economist Elinor Ostrom believed in the power of economics to “bring out the best in humans.” The way to do it, she thought, was to help them build community.
What’s Behind the Exploding Prices of Pro Sports Franchises?
Teams were once considered poor, unpredictable investments. Today they’re among the most coveted assets in the world. What changed?
The Art of Profitability by Adrian Slywotzky
This is a book summary of The Art of Profitability by Adrian Slywotzky. Read The Art of Profitability summary to review key ideas and lessons from the book.