Author Archives: Miranda Kraus

Over the past couple weeks, the issue of Net Neutrality received a lot of attention due to a clash of opinions between President Obama and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. For those of you who don’t know what net neutrality is, simply put, it is the principle that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and the government should treat all data equally, meaning that no Internet Company can pay money for preferential speeds on the side of the consumers. This concept has been the soul of the Internet since its creation, and it has lead to the booming levels of innovation and easy Continue reading Net Neutrality→

Recently, on-demand car service company Uber has received a lot of negative attention from passengers who “unwillingly” spent hundreds of dollars on a car ride during Halloween due to surge pricing (I put “unwillingly” in quotations because the app explicitly tells you if and by how much fares are higher than usual). In fact, a woman named Gabrielle Wathen successfully crowdsourced her $327 Uber bill on Halloween night. She wrote on her GoFund.me page titled “Uber Stole my 26th Birthday”: Last night was Halloween. Great time. Today is my 26th birthday. Not so great time. I feel taken advantage of Continue reading Uber Expensive: the Economics of Surge Pricing→

It’s that time of year: aisles of grocery stores are dedicated to bags of candy the size of a small child, kids and adults alike are scrambling to find the perfect Halloween costume, and not to mention, Halloween is on a Friday this year, meaning festivities will be rampant for all ages. Nobody can deny that Halloween is one of the most profound pinnacles of consumerism. In fact, candy consumption is at an all time high at this time, beating out Christmas, Easter, and even Valentines Day. Americans spend almost $2 billion on candy at Halloween, making up a whopping 8% of Continue reading HallowEconomics→

The discussion of the presence of poverty traps in certain impoverished areas has been a very important and somewhat controversial developmental economic idea for decades. It is most frequently described as a self-reinforcing mechanism that causes poverty to persist. As further explained in Poor Economics by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, your income today influences what your income will be in the future. The amount of money you have today determines what you eat, how much money spent on health, education, ways to improve your work, etc., which in turn influences your income in the future. The poverty trap is seen Continue reading Rethinking the Poverty Trap: A Multidimensional Approach→

Last Thursday, Career and Employment Services hosted an event called ASK Night, where Puget Sound alumni generously volunteer their time to talk to students about what career-related endeavors they’ve been up to since graduation. I thought this would be a great opportunity to chat with some former Economics majors, see how they’ve been doing, and how their studies helped them with their careers. I was disappointed to discover online that out of the 50 or so alumni that attended, only three majored in Economics (and a very small handful minored in it). Out of the three Economics majors, I had the time Continue reading ASK Night: Words of Wisdom from Former Econ Majors→