Letters Remain

Tag: economics

  • Environmental Assumptions

    Big business is environmentally destructive: a widespread and almost unquestioned assumption. A false assumption, according to Jared Diamond, noting that profits often arise from green initiatives and environmental concern is of inherent importance to many large corporations. The story is told through the lens of Wal-Mart’s transport and packaging initiatives, Coca-Cola’s concern “with problems of…

  • Advice from Economists

    Jim Rogers—co-founder of the Quantum Fund (with George Soros), economic commentator, guest professor of finance at Columbia University and author of A Gift to My Children—provided a short interview with the FT discussing his thoughts on making that first million, on travelling, and some general advice to the next generation. What is the secret of your success? As…

  • The Societal Value of Various Jobs

    The New Economics Foundation has released a report comparing various jobs in terms of the societal value they destroy or generate (pdf). The report was produced to start “a fundamental rethink of how the value of work is recognised and rewarded”—specifically by creating a relationship between jobs that create a benefit for society and the…

  • Anatomy of a Price War

    With the recent Amazon–Walmart price war on books and the 1992 airline industry price war as the backdrop, James Surowiecki takes a look at how price wars start, how they can be avoided, and how to (possibly) win at them. The best way to win a price war, then, is not to play in the…

  • Financial Equivalents of Life Events

    Willingness to pay to prevent traumatic life events is “the relevant standard” for measuring the hurt they inflict upon a person. This is according to Robin Hanson, responding to comments in an earlier article of his (previously) where he suggested that as cuckoldry “is a bigger reproductive harm than rape, so we should expect a…

  • Homeowners and Civil Engagement

    According to The Wall Street Journal, the home buyers’ tax credit initiative (U.S.) was “intended to help spur housing sales” by offering financial incentives to first time home-buyers and certain repeat buyers. However the initiative encourages “excess mobility”, suggests Edward Glaeser, a professor of economics at Harvard, and this is something we should not be…

  • How Congestion Pricing and Traffic Jams Help the Environment

    When us laymen think of ways to solve traffic congestion we typically think of two ways: congestion pricing to force those who are most price sensitive off the roads and on to public transport (which should be improved using the funds gained through said pricing), and adding capacity to the roads. But do these solutions…

  • The Deadweight Loss of Gift Vouchers

    Of the $92 billion spent on gift vouchers in the U.S. last year, $6 billion was lost to fees and unused cards. In response to this, the U.S. Credit Card Act now bans fees on vouchers that have been dormant for less than 12 months and expiration dates of less than five years from the…

  • To Invest is to Aim

    In the land of financial markets, the phrase too big to fail has been brought into a new light.  Two physicists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich did a physics-based analysis of the world economy, finding in numerous cases that 80% of a country’s market capital consisted of only a few shareholders.…

  • Absolute and Relative Poverty

    I’ve already mentioned the World Bank’s startling definition of extreme poverty: $1.25, adjusted for PPP. This is what is known as absolute poverty and it is seldom used by politicians—who prefer to look at poverty in relative terms. Relative poverty is slightly more involved, and the BBC weighs in with the internationally accepted definition of relative…