By Keaton Stein The last year has been an incredibly volatile time for many marketplaces. The all-important market for oil has been no exception. Over the previous 52 weeks, a barrel of crude oil has ranged from $62.43 to $130.50. This summer, many consumers felt the downside of this volatility, with gas prices in many…
Month: November 2022
Slouching Towards Utopia: A Book Review
Written by Jason Ouyang Writing about economics is always tricky. Economics is a young field without extensive documentation, or indeed, any real settling of a scholarly consensus – the field is being constantly innovated, and overturned. The empirical revolution is barely twenty years old, now in 2022. But today we use economics to understand the…
LIV v PGA: High Stakes Match Play For the Future of Golf
Written by Daniel Rosenkranz When people think of monopolies, they typically point to large corporations such as Amazon or Apple. The sports industry is rarely mentioned, although the key players in the industry hold some of the most powerful monopolies in the world. In the major sports, there is often one league that captures the…
Why does Everyone Pay for Fast Fashion?
Written by Olivia Knapp Would you rather have a trendy fur bucket hat or a basic winter beanie? If you asked people 15 years ago, most would prefer the latter. Clothing used to be viewed as an investment, with an optimal return of good quality and longevity. About 20% of most consumers’ income was once …
The Economics of Apple Pay
Written by Arnav Gupta Nowadays, when you go to your local grocery store, you will almost always see the tap-to-pay logo on the payment terminal, urging you to tap your card instead of swiping. It is no secret that the usage of mobile wallets, most notably Apple Wallet, has skyrocketed over the past eight years.…
Hope in the Face of Washtenaw County’s Housing Unaffordability Crisis
Written by Molly Amrine Amidst an already turbulent nationwide housing crisis, the socioeconomic dichotomy of Washtenaw County is driving housing costs across the market to unprecedented extremes. In 2015, Washtenaw County published findings predicting this issue. This report saw the fault line of highly educated populations surrounding central Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan…
Analysis of the Downturn in China’s Real Estate Industry
Written by Hanzhang Qin According to Bloomberg News, which analyzed Citibank’s research on China’s real estate sector, a large number of buyers are refusing to pay their home mortgages because of the unfinished buildings and depressed prices in the housing market (Bloomberg News, 2022). Delayed delivery of houses and poor credit resulted in a shortage…
The Economics of Happiness in the Internet Age
Written by Yael Atzmon The idea of happiness is often thought of as an inherently subjective and somewhat hazy idea. After all, everyone experiences happiness in different ways, while doing different things, and at different times; by nature, happiness seems like an ideal that is impossible to pin down. Utilitarianism, a philosophical theory, takes the…
An Evaluation of Market-Based Solutions for Pollutant Emissions
Written by Zara Jacob History and Definition of Cap-and-Trade Markets One of the biggest questions the private sector is wrestling with is how to limit carbon emissions while maintaining strong economic growth. Consensus among staunch free-market conservatives and avid tree-hugging environmentalists is an image many would chalk up to political fantasy. Yet, those are the…