Three Graphs That Tell the Whole Oil Story

Following the law of supply, U.S. shale oil firms will lower output because OPEC is letting price plummet but airlines on demand side like lower prices.

Our Weekly Roundup: From Being Cool to Being a Wise Investor

This week’s everyday economics stories included spillover, externalities, incentive, opportunity cost, sovereign debt, demand and financial intermediaries.

What It Means to be Cool

As a technological innovation, air conditioning led to a ripple of positive externalities. Affecting how we live and work, it had private and social return.

When Does Practice Really Matter?

Since education creates positive externalities that fuel economic growth, understanding how to develop expertise through human capital formation is crucial.

The Surprising Impact of the Shot Clock On Basketball

This 60-foot shot is amazing. The game was between Shakopee and Hopkins, 2 Minneapolis-St. Paul area high school basketball teams. Playing a semifinal playoff, in quadruple overtime, Hopkins won 49-46 with the 60-foot shot. Hopkins’s strategy? They stalled with the…

Unusual Ways to Achieve Deficit Reduction

Hoping to diminish their country’s deficit, last year, Malta’s President and Parliament decided to sell citizenship. The price tag is $891,000 and the perk is that Malta is in the EU. Consequently, you get an island home with a back…

Eight Technologies That Will Destroy and Create Businesses

Making money was the Goldman Sachs agenda in an August, 2013 report. In “The Search for Creative Destruction,” their equity research connected Schumpeter’s creative destruction to investing opportunities. Eight new technologies, they said, would force businesses to “adapt or die.”…

The Unexpected Impact of Changing Times

Beyond less sleep, when we moved our clocks ahead last night, we created many unintended consequences. It all began during the 1880s when the railroads said that they should coordinate time. With railroad companies observing 52 different times and even…

A Big Problem for Libraries

Several weeks ago, I had the huge pleasure of attending the final hour of the marathon reading of Moby Dick at the Nantucket Public Library. The stacks that surrounded me were filled with books and almost everyone had a copy…