Sound Economics

Beer is considered a “vice” by governmental bodies at all levels. Yet this vice acts like a “normal good” in the face of economic downturn. During the economic turbulence of the COVID pandemic, the large mass-produced domestic beer market got off reasonably unscathed, though not untouched by the market forced which they found themselves subject to. According to the Beer Institute the industry lost 568,040 jobs, close to 22 billion dollars in wages, and close to 20 billion dollars in lost sales revenue. These losses were felt most profoundly by independent micro-breweries. The beer industry finds itself in a place Continue reading The Brewer’s COVID Hangover: A Swig of the Pandemic Poison→

The modern food system ensures provision of an enormous quantity and variety of safe, fresh foods to billions of people on a global scale. However, our current industrialized food system has in part arisen from and remains fundamentally dependent upon systemic global inequality. It will be impossible to increase agricultural production by the required 70% by 2050 if we do not make any effort to correct the expanding wealth divide between the global rich and the global poor. I believe this wealth gap can be bridged through the sharing of agricultural research. Any loss in economic growth Western countries suffer Continue reading The Economic Case for Tech in Agriculture→

Day labor, a form of contingent work that is available daily with no assurance of future employment or job security, is a critical segment of the United States’ labor market and domestic informal economy. Around 117,600 individuals in the U.S. are either competing for day labor jobs or employed as day laborers on any given day and 83 percent of which rely on this activity as their sole source of income. Foreign-born and minoritized workers are overrepresented among the prospective laborers looking for work next to open-air roadside markets, at busy street corners, in front of hardware stores, as well Continue reading The Economics of Day Laboring as a Monopsony→

Pay-What-You-Want pricing is probably the best pricing model if your goal is to run your company into the ground. This model is as simple as it sounds; a company provides a good or service, you consume it, then pay whatever you feel is a reasonable price. In this model, the consumer dictates the price of the good or service they are receiving, and the producer must accept it. For me, free is a perfectly reasonable price for everything!  The motivation for the PWYW model seems legitimate; buyers will theoretically trust producers due to their confidence, and producers have the chance Continue reading Pay-What-You-Want Pricing→

Modeling tricks and approaches have removed key technical barriers to the study of geography and distance in economics. Revived research interest in where economic activity occurs and why as well as in the physical distribution of wealth and peoples has led to the rise of spatial economics. Spatial economics exists at the intersection of econometrics, geographic information science, and data analytics to identify and answer real-world concerns like the extent to which constructing inter-regional transportation infrastructures can help reduce inequality or integrating networks of suppliers, distributors, consumers, and community across spaces can increase the competitiveness of local food producers. In Continue reading Spatial Economics, Explained→

“Beauty is vanishing from our world because we live as though it did not matter.”  – Sir Roger Scruton Over the last 50 years, there has seemingly existed an almost complete lack of symbolic value within contemporary art and architecture within the United States.  With that said, we know that there is a value to symbolic works of art and architecture (for we once produced them en masse in the past), but we can’t seem to figure out what that value is today. Because of that, today, we no longer seem to be able (or willing) to produce these symbolic Continue reading Symbolic Value→

Externalities are the external impacts incurred by an economic agent not involved in a transaction, which can be either a cost (negative) or a benefit (positive) and occur from either the production or consumption of a good or service. Thus, because externalities lead to a difference in the public impact from the private impact, a deadweight loss exists. A deadweight loss is an excess burden created by the lost economic efficiency when the socially optimal quantity of a good or service is not produced or consumed. To understand how social planners correct for this form of a market failure, an Continue reading Externalities, Explained→

Throughout my time on campus, I have observed different individual behaviors motivated by environmental conscientiousness. Behaviors such as using a refillable water bottle seem to be very common. Similar to my peers, I like to think I am environmentally conscious, but do my actions align with my beliefs? How do we make decisions in order to minimize our individual impact on the environment? I believe that our environmentally conscious actions are not necessarily dictated by the benefits associated with those actions. For example, a student at this school would never dare use a plastic straw, but choose to fly home Continue reading Loggers Live Green: Environmentally Conscious Decision-making→

Non-market valuation relies on individual preference. As humans, we develop preferences knowing we have a finite existence. This limits our ability to value non-market goods because these values are derived from personal benefit during a finite time. Future benefits are discounted for this reason. The benefits from non-market goods endure for much longer than our lifespans. Is there any way to value non-market goods, such as free-flowing rivers, without bias? Are we fit to judge the value of clean and sustainable environments? I would argue that we are not given the current global environmental trajectory.  Given the drastic effect of Continue reading Limitations of Non-market Valuation→

In chapter four of Dan Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational, he discusses the difference between social and market norms. Social and market norms guide much of our decision making, but they are not necessarily compatible. I have experienced the problems that arise when social and market norms come into conflict firsthand.  “Could you please come in here to help me out?” my mom said to me, “I’ll pay you $1.” Every good son should stop whatever they are doing when their mother is in need of help, right? Well, I did not. I was petting my dog in the living when Continue reading Favors Are Not For Sale→