Month: March 2019

Adam Smith created the concept of the “invisible hand” intending it to refer to the market forces at work which determine resource allocation in an economy but now, there is a very real possibility that technology could create a new, much different invisible hand. While communism is in the news less frequently now than it was in the recent past, there are still nations committed to living out Marx’s thought experiment. For the sake of simplicity, I am going to ignore the social aspects of communism in favor of the much more exciting economic factors relating to a centrally planned Continue reading Will Technology Lead to Successful Communism?→

“Spring Break”- an alcohol-fueled, money-guzzling phenomenon that has distracted and attracted people since ancient Greece. With all the travelling and partying that spring break implies for much of the college population, it’s worth considering how all this impacts the local economies of popular travel destinations. While college students on break provide a boost of revenue (though the extent of impact this varies by destination), they also cost these locations money in criminal activity. Via quantitative methods on a variety of case study “host locations,” one 2008 study examines the question, “Is spring break worth the cost of the student impacts?” This Continue reading The Sporadic Economics of the “Spring Break Effect”→

Today’s Thesis Corner features Sound Economics’ very own Finn Dobkin. His thesis examines why the Great Depression affected Washington State more severely than the rest of the country. Upon further analysis, the history of Washington’s economy explains its collapse. In 1821, the Hudson Bay Company merged with the Pacific Northwest Company during the period of European colonization. Since the Hudson Bay Company was located overseas in London, it exerted no in-person control over Washington’s economy. The company focused more on exploiting Washington’s resources for short-term profit, particularly fur and timber, which continued throughout most of the state’s history. During WWI, Continue reading Thesis Corner: Finn Dobkin→

JUST, Inc. is a company based in San Francisco, California looking to revolutionize the food manufacturing industry. The company aims to produce “clean meat.” This type of meat does not require farming, massive slaughterhouses or abundant amounts of animal feed for food growth. Instead, JUST, Inc. is perfecting a technology that allows for the extraction of animal DNA from any one of its cells. This DNA is then replicated in a petri dish and animal muscle is grown. For example, a chicken’s DNA sequence can be extracted from a single feather, introduced into a petri dish and chicken meat can Continue reading JUST Meat or Just “Meat”?→