Thesis Corner: Megan Waldo

Megan Waldo is one of three women graduating with an economics degree this year, 2018. Megan decided to conduct an empirical thesis using econometric methods. Her thesis was centered around analyzing the equity and accessibility of New York City’s bike share Citi Bike through an econometric regression that looked at the relationship between socio-economic characteristics of zip code tabulation areas and the density of bike share stations within them for 2016-2017. She used income, educational attainment levels, age, gender, and race compositions of each ZCTA to analyze the demographics and then a GIS system, carto, to count the number of Continue reading Thesis Corner: Megan Waldo

Millian vs. Ricardian Stationary State

Economists David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill dedicated their lives to economic writing that analyzed the dynamics of capitalist economies. Specifically, they investigated sources of economic growth and development. Principles of Political Economy and Taxation was David Ricardo’s contribution to this economic growth and development literature. Within this economic literature, Ricardo built a complex model through the theory of value and rent that attempted to thoroughly address topics of rent, profit, and wages. “To Ricardo, the economic world was constantly tending to expand.”[1] To Ricardo, continuous expansion by capitalist would cause a chain reaction that would affect prices of commodities, Continue reading Millian vs. Ricardian Stationary State

Insight to the Wealth of Nations: Chapters One through Three

Chapter 1: Division of Labor               In chapter one, it is very apparent that Smith is pro-capital, and anti-agriculture, which heavily contributes to his ideas surrounding what a rich country should look like. He argued that “the greatest improvement in the productive powers of labor, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labor.”[1] For Smith the “improvement in the productive powers of labor” could only be achieved through manufacturing. This argument was mainly formed by Smiths disagreement with Continue reading Insight to the Wealth of Nations: Chapters One through Three

Venezuelas Monetary Disaster Continued

About two years ago I reported on Venezuela’s messy monetary system, which I intended to update with the new news surrounding the creation of a cryptocurrency they call the Petro. However, I am beginning with a refresher about what Venezuela’s monetary system has looked like since 2014.  Venezuela began to face detrimentally high inflation in 2014, right after the death of previous President Hugo Chavez. Although this was not the beginning of the country’s monetary problems, high inflation has led to a huge decrease in the value of the Bolivar, Venezuela’s currency. Now prices of regular goods and services have skyrocketed. Not only Continue reading Venezuelas Monetary Disaster Continued

Different Economic Opinions by Sex

Ann Mari May and Mary MGarvey of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and David Kucera of the International Labour Organization surveyed economists from 18 European countries in search of economist’s opinions on certain matters. What they found was not only fascinating but also not incredibly surprising. The set up the poll by asking five different questions with ratings ranging from one to five. One stood for strongly disagreeing and five standing for strong agreeing. They then divided up the answers by sex. The results of the poll are shown in the image below: As we can see, four out of the Continue reading Different Economic Opinions by Sex

Multisided Platforms continued

Recall last weeks post about Multisided platforms through the example of Classpass. We very lightly touched on their business model which was formed by a money side and a subsidy side, where consumers were the money side and gym/studios were the subsidy side. This week we will dive deeper into the complications of building, igniting and designing a multisided platform. Classpass’s business model is just one common way to configure a money and subsidy sides of a platform. While this model may work for them, it would not work for a company such as Spotify. Spotify connects music artists with Continue reading Multisided Platforms continued

A Glance at Multisided Platforms through Classpass

How many of us have more than one gym membership?  It’s actually quite common these days as several different forms of fitness have been created over the last 5 years. Some days, all I want to do is yoga, but others I want to do the opposite and lift heavy(essentially undoing all the yoga I did). It’s seemingly uncommon for a lifting gym to offer yoga classes, so I have another gym membership at a studio. Let me just say IT’S EXPENSIVE(especially for the college budget). With all these trendy new ways to work out, what if I want to try something Continue reading A Glance at Multisided Platforms through Classpass

Thesis Corner with Quitterie Collignon

The days are dwindling down for seniors here at Puget Sound. This year seemingly came and went quickly. That’s probably because seniors in the economics department, like other departments, were busy working on their theses. Quitterie Collignon, a graduating senior, took advantage of her accumulated economics foundation and interests and used it to construct a successful empirical thesis about policy effects on the organic farming sector. Inspiration  In the summer of 2016 Quitterie worked for a non-profit, noncertified organic farm in Puyallup WA. Although it was summer, Quitterie’s academic exploration of thought was still on. She says, “I became very Continue reading Thesis Corner with Quitterie Collignon

Ethics in Environmental Economics: Coase Theorem

Environmental economics objectively looks at natural resources and environmental issues from a market perspective. In the traditional model, supply (private marginal costs) is equal to demand (social marginal benefits) that create a socially optimal equilibrium. When private marginal costs differ from social marginal benefits, an externality is produced. Transitioning from what an externality looks like graphically, “An externality exists when a person makes a choice that affects other people in a way that is not accounted for in the market price.” [1] These choices are generally based off production and consumption needs by an individual or firm and can be Continue reading Ethics in Environmental Economics: Coase Theorem

Mafias Cause Negative Externalities

Most of the worlds environmental damages have come from mineral mines. Over time large markets and industries have been centered around feeding consumer’s obsessions with these shiny and sparkly minerals like diamonds and gold. With a high intrinsic and monetary value those industries for years thrive, but of quartz (pun intended) those industries have become rare due to over extraction. But whoever would have thought that the sand mining industry would someday boom! Currently India’s sand mafia accumulates around $2.3b a year in the illicit market for sand. It’s estimated that 50,000 lorryloads of sand is being mined per day and Continue reading Mafias Cause Negative Externalities