Ricky Howard – Page 3 – Sound Economics

Interactive Census maps

Posted on April 19, 2014 by Ricky Howard — 1 Comment ↓

In recent work for my Urban Economics Class with Professor Mann, I came upon some very interesting maps during my research on ethnic neighborhoods. I have been looking for a quantitative way to define ethnic neighborhoods, to be able to perform some numerical analysis on their impact on cities. The first map that I found is a visual representation of the ethnic/racial distribution of our population. With this map, we are able to see where there are areas that have high densities of a certain race or ethnicity or we are able to see cities that have even distributions of Continue reading Interactive Census maps→

The Status of Robotics in our Economy

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Ricky Howard — 1 Comment ↓

It seems like we have been expecting sophisticated robots to show up for some time now. We have been making movies about artificial beings for decades, spanning from Data in Star Trek, to Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator, to Star Wars with our favorite robot duo. There is a certain fascination with robots in our society, where we are both excited and terrified about the development of artificial intelligence. Well, more and more, we are having machines doing things humans used to do, and we should start to consider what that could mean for our society. Already, this mechanization has had Continue reading The Status of Robotics in our Economy→

College Football Unionization

Posted on April 5, 2014 by Ricky Howard — 1 Comment ↓

Last week, the National Labor Relations Board determined the Northwestern University Football team to be employees of the University, and approved their petition to form a union. This seems strange doesn’t it? The players do not get paid a salary, and they are considered by the University to be students first and foremost. In the past few years, there has been a running debate about whether Student-Athletes, who can bring in significant revenue for their school, should be paid for their efforts. This discussion about paying players has not progressed beyond an interesting topic for ESPN to discuss when the Continue reading College Football Unionization→

The NBA Losing Problem

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Ricky Howard — 2 Comments ↓

If you have been paying attention to the NBA recently, you may notice a few teams that are aspiring to lose as many games as they can. The Philadelphia 76ers have just lost a franchise record 26th game in a row, and it is quite possible that they will lose the rest of their games this season. This would appear to be a disappointment for the franchise, but it is all part if a greater plan. This losing streak, and entire season, was orchestrated by the organization. Before the February 20th trade deadline, the team traded their two best and Continue reading The NBA Losing Problem→