Month: March 2016

Why Negative Interest Rates Even Work At All

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Reading Lorraine’s post last week on negative interest rates, I did a bit of a double take. “Negative interest rates!?,” I wondered, “Why would any right-minded entity enter into such a disadvantageous arrangement?” Well, it turns out that having money–as in actually possessing currency–can be costly, especially if you have very large amounts of it. NPR’s All Things Considered put out a nice little exposition on this concept. One of my favorite parts of the story is a quote excerpted from a speech by Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer that lays out why holding currency can be costly: “It turns out that holding currency is Continue reading Why Negative Interest Rates Even Work At All→

Does it Cost More to be Female?

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It’s common knowledge that there is a disparity between men and women’s wages, but is there also a gap between the prices of products that we buy that serve the same purpose? Products marketed to women and girls on average cost 7% more than identical products sold specifically to men. The reason so many companies are able to do this is that neither gender searches outside products marketed to them, rather they make an economical choice between brands within their gender packaging. Most astonishingly a study found that Target sold three wheel scooters, one red for $24.88, and one pink for Continue reading Does it Cost More to be Female?→