Sound Economics

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→

I was recently purchasing my plane tickets for my trip home over Thanksgiving weekend. After experiencing a real-life example of a price gouge, I asked myself if I was buying these plane tickets at the right time to minimize the price that I have to pay. My thinking was that there must be some sort of “sweet spot” for when plane tickets are cheapest. I wasn’t sure if it would just the earlier the better as airlines can charge more as people become more desperate to book a trip, or if you could actually book a flight too early. When Continue reading When to buy airline tickets→

The discussion of the presence of poverty traps in certain impoverished areas has been a very important and somewhat controversial developmental economic idea for decades. It is most frequently described as a self-reinforcing mechanism that causes poverty to persist. As further explained in Poor Economics by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, your income today influences what your income will be in the future. The amount of money you have today determines what you eat, how much money spent on health, education, ways to improve your work, etc., which in turn influences your income in the future. The poverty trap is seen Continue reading Rethinking the Poverty Trap: A Multidimensional Approach→

Despite the vilification of the “1%”, occupation of financial centers like Wall Street and the visibly widening income gap, many Americans don’t actually know how severe the United States’ economic inequality is. In fact, those surveyed for Michael Norton’s (Harvard Business School) new study on public opinion of executive pay grossly underestimated the pay gap between the average worker and CEOs. According to the AFL-CIO, the average American worker makes about $34,000 a year, while the average CEO earns more than $12 million. For a better understanding of such a disparity, the average American worker makes about .28% of what the average Continue reading Americans Underestimate Economic Inequality and the Pay Gap→

Last Thursday, Career and Employment Services hosted an event called ASK Night, where Puget Sound alumni generously volunteer their time to talk to students about what career-related endeavors they’ve been up to since graduation. I thought this would be a great opportunity to chat with some former Economics majors, see how they’ve been doing, and how their studies helped them with their careers. I was disappointed to discover online that out of the 50 or so alumni that attended, only three majored in Economics (and a very small handful minored in it). Out of the three Economics majors, I had the time Continue reading ASK Night: Words of Wisdom from Former Econ Majors→