Category Archives: Economics

Stimulus Plan Brings Foodie’s to Southie

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Sam Kornstein

There’s been a lot of debate about whether or not the stimulus plan worked. At the time it was passed, many argued that it wouldn’t be fast enough, that the projects would take so long to get underway that it wouldn’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Boston/Cambridge, Current Events, Economics | Leave a comment

The Great Norwegian Butter Shortage of 2011

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Sam Kornstein

This article threw me for a number of reasons. I’ll comment on it paragraph by paragraph: “An acute butter shortage in Norway, one of the world’s richest countries, has left people worrying how to bake their Christmas goodies with store … Continue reading →

Posted in Current Events, Economics | 1 Comment

Death to the Penny

Posted on December 3, 2011 by Sam Kornstein

Via Marginal Revolution, this is very well-done:

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2011 Market Factor Performance

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Sam Kornstein

Via The Big Picture, BofA Merrill has a very interesting graphic showing the out-performance/under-performance of various quantitative market factors for stocks in the S&P 500. Quantitative market factors are investment signals studied in academia and/or used by investors:

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AA+ What?

Posted on August 7, 2011 by Sam Kornstein

Kid Dynamite: “In case you’ve been living under a rock:  Standard and Poors downgraded the credit rating for the United States of America last night, from AAA to AA+.” It seems that at this point S&P is generally viewed as … Continue reading →

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Corn Subsidies in One Chart

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Sam Kornstein

I’ve heard lots of arguments from both sides about the merits of domestic corn subsidies, but I think this chart pretty much sums everything up: Either directly, or indirectly, we consume too much corn. Thanks to my brother for pointing … Continue reading →

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Some Thoughts on Debt

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Sam Kornstein

The debt debacle has obviously been well covered in the news and on the blogosphere. James Fallows puts the impact of policies into perspective: The point is that governments can respond to but not control external shocks. That’s why we … Continue reading →

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Outlier

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Sam Kornstein
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The Theory of Interstellar Trade

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Sam Kornstein

My coworker pointed me to a Paul Krugman paper written in 1978 titled “The Theory of Interstellar Trade.” Here’s the abstract: “This article extends interplanetary trade theory to an interstellar setting. It is chiefly concerned with the following question: how … Continue reading →

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When History Was Made

Posted on July 9, 2011 by Sam Kornstein

Via The Economist, this is fascinating: “More person years have been lived in the first decade of the current century than in all of the 17th century. And nearly 80% of the economic output of the last millenium has been … Continue reading →

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