Month: September 2015

[This post is follows up on Part One from last week]. Last week I brought up the question: why have the parties negotiating the future of Greece allowed a seemingly needless series of near catastrophes (followed by last-minute resolutions) to occur? One answer might be the reason why you (probably) write your essays the night before they’re due. Collin’s great article from last year delves into an economics-flavored analysis of procrastination. If you don’t have time to give it a read–which you should definitely do–the gist is this: “…given the choice between having a good thing ($100) now or later, we tend Continue reading Groundhog Day in Greece (Part Two)→

Last week, I introduced the issue of negative externalities and how the amount that consumers pay for energy fail to reflect the environmental and social costs that come with its extraction and production. Recall that the supply curve typically shown in introductory economics classes only projects the Marginal Private Cost (MPC) of the firm, but there also exists a curve called the Marginal Social Cost (MSC), which gives a graphical representation of the external costs that come with the creation of a good. The gap between the MPC and the MSC must be closed for the sake of sustaining not only the Continue reading Getting the Price Right: Carbon Tax→

What can explain why we do something out of the goodness of our heart, or put ourselves into dangerous situations and perform heroic acts? Most heroes that you ask will tell you that they acted instinctively and unconsciously, and didn’t stop to think. But clearly if we all stopped to think about helping and saving others from a purely economical standpoint, there would be a sharp decline in heroic acts. So why do we continue to put ourselves in situations that can be proven to always leave us with lower payoffs? Some explanations turn to the long run and karma; Continue reading The Game of Genuine Altruism→

I thought I would take this opportunity early on in the semester to take another look at one of the bigger stories of the summer: the brief time in June and July Greece stood on the brink of default and the Eurozone stood on the edge of crisis. Not only was the international media thoroughly aflutter over the situation, but emergency measures imposed on Greeks at best proved a severe inconvenience. Most visibly, capital controls curtailed the ability of Greeks to access their savings, leading to long lines for ATMs.   NPR’s Planet Money team interviewed a man who, disillusioned Continue reading Groundhog Day in Greece→