Category Archives: Economics

Turn on the news and chances are there will be mention of gun control, gun violence, or something of the like. It’s not too surprising either. Relative to our OECD peers, the U.S. has the highest firearm death rate (10.2 per 100,000 people). These staggering numbers force us to ask the question, why do we still have firearms? Some people will blame government inefficiency, others will blame a strong gun lobby, or the outright failure of democracy. Well, in a way, all three can be blamed. But a more nuanced understanding of the gun control problem can only be explained Continue reading An economic answer to America’s gun control question→

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→

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→

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→

Skimming through the literature on contemporary healthcare, whether domestic or global, the rhetoric that the authors use reveals quite a bit about their intentions and beliefs on healthcare. For example, a 2003 discussion paper published by the WHO stated one of the main priorities when designing a healthcare system is to, “consider fairness in financial contribution” implying that healthcare is a normal good. On the opposing side, physician-anthropologist Dr. Salmaan Keshavjee of Harvard University stated that when we solely consider market ideals in healthcare, “non-market values worth caring about are crowded out.” These two views are telling of our own Continue reading What drives healthcare policy: Economics or Cultural values→

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→