Sound Economics

Click here to see the photo gallery from this month’s Senior Dinner. Congratulations again to our graduating seniors!

As we begin finals week, and our bloggers take their summer hiatus, readers may be wondering where to go to get their fix of economic news and analysis. Fortunately, the econ blogosphere is under no shortage of excellent blogs worth reading. One such blogger, Noah Smith, has compiled a guide on Bloomberg View titled “These Are the Econ Blogs You Need to Read.” Macro blogs, aggregator blogs (which collect and often synthesize other blogs), game theory and decision making blogs, more partisan (both on the left and right) blogs … the list goes on and on. The realm of econ blogs Continue reading The Economics Blogosphere→

I’ll be taking a little time this summer to do a little reading, and I’m inviting Sound Economics readers and writers to join me in the inaugural Sound Economics Summer Reading club! Below, I’ll give a few books I plan on reading this summer. Feel free to reply in the comments section if you’d like to join me for some summer economics reading. Once fall comes back around, we’ll have something to discuss as a community of readers and econ-enthusiasts! I look forward to writing on these books (and much more) when the fall comes back around! Book #1: Misbehaving: The Continue reading Sound Economics Summer Reading→

77% of voters approved San Francisco’s Prop J last year – and on May 1st the San Francisco minimum wage increased to $12.25. This is the first minimum wage hike of many, as Prop J will raise the minimum wage in the city to $15 by 2018. Although raising the minimum wage seems like the socially optimal option, especially in a city with such a high cost of living, is it feasible for the smaller establishments and local shops that many San Franciscans know and love? Brian Hibbs is the owner of Comix Experience, a comic book store he has run for Continue reading Prop J and San Francisco’s Minimum Wage Hike→

The Kriens Fund for Economics provides financial support for students’ independent research projects. You can extend a project from one of your classes or research a new topic, even one that might later become part of your thesis. Any topic is eligible but projects involving conservation or with an environmental focus are particularly encouraged. New deadline: Tuesday, May 5th Paperwork is available in the Economics Dept. lounge. All you need is a completed application, project proposal, budget, and support of a faculty supervisor. Questions? contact Prof. Garrett Milam, gmilam@pugetsound.edu

Are you planning on watching the Mayweather Pacquiao fight tomorrow? I hope you are prepared to shell out some serious cash. My recommended strategy is to try to free ride off of someone else’s purchase, but we know how this usually turns out. This fight is already setting records for pay-per-view costs ($100) and the fighters are going to be paid pretty well for the evening: $120 million and $80 million respectively. Both of these fighters are said to be past their prime (I have no authority to judge this for myself) but Floyd is 38 and Manny is 36, Continue reading The Monopoly of Boxing→

For those who aren’t familiar, there’s been increasing talk coming from the Obama administration about utilizing a fast-track path to get a wide-reaching trade agreement between several countries around the Pacific Ocean. These countries are, tentatively, Taiwan, Phillipines, Laos, Columbia and Indonesia, with several other potential members, including India. Together, this coalition makes up an overwhelming portion of total world-GDP, and helps to set some kind of trading rules in place with the idea that no individual nation ends up losing out too badly. The general wisdom of economics states that free trade is always a good thing, as was Continue reading What’s all the Fuss Around the TPP?→

The past few weeks, I’ve been looking at the genesis of “podcasting” through an economic lens. This week, I’m turning to look at the current state of the podcast market. At a first glance, the podcast industry seems to follow the “public good” paradigm. Economists define a public good as “A product that one individual can consume without reducing its availability to another individual and from which no one is excluded.”. Although there is some marginal cost associated with digitally distributing the sound files to a listener, this cost is very small. Except for the largest operations (Ira Glass claimed in 2011 that Continue reading Podcasting: An Emerging Industry? (Part 5)→

Arizona State University recently announced that they will be offering “pay- as –you- pass” online college courses. How this will work is that students can enroll in freshman courses online free of charge. The initial offerings include math, humanities, arts and design, social-behavioral sciences, and natural sciences. The catch is that the student only has to pay if they pass the class and intend to use the credit. This idea was put in place primarily with the hope that it would help certain students reduce the risk of going into huge debt on their path to attempting to obtain a college diploma. Continue reading A Risk Averse Student’s Dream→