sc Feb 5 INA GARTEN was an Econ Major! “What can you do with an economics major?” I frequently get that question from students who are trying to decide what undergraduate degr...
sc Jan 31 Cookie Dough Cheesecake and Asymmetric Information The Cheesecake Factory is huge. Not only does it have the longest menu in history, its restaurants -- which are often two stories -- are...
sc Jan 8 The Magic of Chocolate Chips Have you ever thought about why there are chocolate chips at the grocery store? I mean really stopped to think about it. There you are, ...
sc Jul 2, 2020 “Bang for Buck” and Regular vs. Instant Grits The movie “My Cousin Vinny” has a fan club of lawyers and judges who love to quote the movie and use it as an example of effective cross-...
sc Apr 17, 2020 COVID-19: Crossing State Borders & Homemade Vanilla Extract One of the first lessons in an economics class is “People respond to incentives.” This concept is quite intuitive. When you were a child...
sc Aug 27, 2019 Thinking on the Margin & Birthday Cake Marginal thinking is a key concept in economics, but it is often one that is misunderstood. Most of our thinking is in fact on the margi...
sc Jul 14, 2019 Opportunity Cost, Economic Profit, and Opening a Bakery Overhead at a table of economists: Susan: “They’re making a profit every month” Mike: “Accounting or Economic profit?” Table: Erupts in l...
sc Jul 11, 2019 The Market for Lemon Meringue Pie George Akerlof won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 for his research on information asymmetries in markets. His seminal paper on the...
sc Jul 4, 2019 Fireworks Cookies and Public Goods Happy 4th of July! There are all kinds of goods. Things you buy and only you eat. Things you buy and you share. Things you buy and con...
sc Apr 14, 2019 Salt and Sunk Costs “You added a cup of salt instead of a cup of sugar to the batter??” I’ll keep names anonymous, but I still remember hearing a friend tell...