Category Archives: Economics

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→

As you probably know, our ability to track the physical status of the human body is becoming easier with technology like Fitbit etc. The mechanisms for checking things like fatigue have become smaller, and more mobile, to the point that they can be worn while playing sports. Naturally, professional sports teams want to utilize this technology in order to gain a competitive advantage. Using this technology would allow them ensure that their athletes are receiving the correct amount of training, and are not fatigued for games. Alongside the this technology, teams are now starting to use consistent blood testing as Continue reading Medical Technology in Sports→

This article continues a series of posts examining non-biological factors contributing to the Ebola crisis’s severity. This week, we’ll look at poverty. This may seem like a “no, duh” factor, but the effects of poverty on transmission rates extend beyond just lack of access to healthcare or lack of sanitation, two common explanations for outbreaks of disease in conditions of poverty. I found these surprising observations in the PlosOne article The Impact of Economic Crises on Communicable Disease Transmission and Control: A Systematic Review of the Evidence. + Increased cortisol levels from stress and poor nutrition can hamper immunity, worsening Continue reading Ebola: Why is it so bad? (Part 5)→

Some economists and policymakers are currently discussing what they call the “family deficit”. The amount of married couples in America is on the decline, and is having varied economic impacts on varied groups. In 1960, only 12 percent of Americans aged 25 to 34 had never married. In 2010, 47 percent of Americans aged 25 to 34 had never married. Social pressures regarding marriage have lessened since the 1960’s, with the lessening stigma of divorce and birth control becoming more accessible. Large amounts of women began to enter the workforce, those in unsuccessful relationships were able to leave and seek out new ones, and Americans on Continue reading The Family Deficit→

Last week, something interesting happened in the NBA in regards to the NBA draft lottery. The NBA as a whole has been facing criticism about the persistent ‘tanking problem’ where teams are losing on purpose to try to receive a better draft pick the next year. I talked about this in a blog last year, that teams have an incentive to lose as many games as they can if they are not going to make the playoffs, and that this strategy is actually the most rational strategy that they can take on. The main culprits of this strategy right now, Continue reading The NBA’s Failed Reform→

This post continues a series of posts examining non-biological factors contributing to the Ebola crisis’s severity. This week, we’ll look at the impact of Ebola on other health issues in West Africa. In addition to casualties resulting directly from EVD (Ebola Virus Disease)—the statistics we see in the news—the outbreak has likely caused many other deaths. By battering West Africa’s developing healthcare system, Ebola enables otherwise preventable diseases, especially Malaria and other diseases of poverty, to run rampant. EVD has taken a terrible toll on medical personnel in West Africa. According to the World Health Organization’s Ebola Response Roadmap Situation Report, Continue reading Ebola: Why is it so bad? (Part 4)→

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→