Markets

Food Prices

Posted on February 5, 2011February 5, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Current Events, Markets

There’s been much talk in the media about how the initial protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Jordan were, at least partly, sparked by unrest due to rising commodity and food prices. What’s been discussed much less is the underlying cause of these price spikes. Is it speculation, or an actual increase in consumption (or a decrease in yields)? I hadn’t thought much about it until a reader sent me this article written by Joel Brinkley, a Stanford journalism professor who’s a foreign correspondent for the NYT (syndicated in my hometown’s daily newspaper): The world is heading into a food crisis again, barely three years after the last one in 2008. That, not political reform, animated the riots and demonstrations

Tuk Tuk Rides

Posted on January 16, 2011January 20, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Markets, Travel

I’ve always found bargaining to be interesting from both a behavioral economics and a cultural perspective. Chris Blattman had a great post on bargaining fractions a couple years back, specifically focusing on taxi fares. To summarize, in many countries there’s no taxi meter, and it’s appropriate (and often necessary) to negotiate a rate. Chris has found that the final negotiated price in a given country is usually a pretty consistent fraction of the driver’s initial offer price (assuming you’re a decent negotiator). But what’s interesting is that this fraction varies significantly between countries. Chris then talks about a few negotiation strategies that will help a traveler get down to a given country’s fraction without paying too much of a “foreigner

Well Hello, Mr. Jefferson

Posted on January 11, 2011January 11, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Markets

The other day I paid for lunch, and this is what I was given for change: The waiter found there to be absolutely nothing unusual about this.

Facebook, Bubbles, and Nigerian Scams

Posted on January 7, 2011January 7, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Markets

Lots of interesting speculation about the Facebook-Goldman deal: Simon Johnson thinks it’s a taxpayer subsidy that is setting the stage for another bubble and subsequent financial crisis. Justin Fox describes why going public is no longer such an attractive option, why Facebook may do a better job than Google at avoiding an IPO, and how some SEC rules are being bent along the way. And the WSJ likens it to a Nigerian scam.