Author Archives: Maggie Hatt

Back in December of 2018, the Trump administration announced that it wanted to end federal subsidies for electric vehicles. This may have been in part in retaliation to General Motors for its planned layoffs, however it would also have implications for the future of the renewable fuel and electric car industry. Under current regulations, the subsidies no longer apply to purchases of vehicles from an individual manufacturer after it sells 200,000 of the model. Tesla, one of the most well known electric car brands in recent years, hit this mark in July of 2018. From then, the tax credit was/will Continue reading Tesla: $702 Million Loss Raises Questions About EV Market & Subsidies→

In this edition of Thesis Corner, I sat down with Julia Ratcliff to discuss her investigation into the connections of blockchain technology and multi-sided platform theory. What was your thesis project about? Essentially my project was about blockchain and multi-sided platform theory. I was trying to see if technologies could essentially replace these businesses that act as intermediaries between two different groups of people. What were your conclusions? Technically I did a theory based paper, I didn’t do an econometrics paper, but really it was more on the argumentative side because I was trying to work multi-sided platform price theory Continue reading Thesis Corner: Julia Ratcliff→

The wage gap, or earnings ratio as it is alternatively known, is a well-established phenomenon that has remained pervasive for many, many years. The 2017 earnings ratio was 80%, meaning that women earned 80% of their male counterparts’ salaries, for those that worked full-time, and full-year. Now, you’re probably thinking “Yeah, yeah, I know, women make less than men,” and it’s an atrocious reality of the job market today, but why would I be bringing this back up? The New York Times recently published a study that involved thousands of colleges throughout the United States and profiled their economic diversity, Continue reading Earnings Ratio Raises Questions About Economic Outlook→

In Econ 244: Gender and the Economy, we have been learning about two particular effects that influence an individual’s decision of how many hours to dedicate to market work: the substitution effect and the income effect. Now, I’m not just bringing this up to tell you about a (super interesting) class that I’m taking, but also because of the recent proposal to increase the threshold salary under which individuals are eligible for overtime pay. Currently, individuals earning $23,700 or less annually are eligible for these additional wages, however the new proposal by the Labor Department would increase that maximum threshold Continue reading Overtime Eligibility & Women’s Labor Force Participation→