Pumpkin Spice in Everything
Every September we begin to see the signs that the fall season is on the horizon. The temperature starts to cool, the leaves start changing colors, and Starbucks begins selling…
The Economics of Bans on Plastic Straws
Whole Foods announced on May 20 it would stop offering plastic straws in all of its stores. Other companies such as Starbucks and McDonald’s are taking the same steps. Meanwhile,…
Food & Wine: “The Craft-Fishing Revolution Is Here, Now”
You probably don’t expect to learn much about economics in Food & Wine magazine, but here is a great story about the “craft fishing” industry. It includes economic concepts such…
NBC News: “No pay, no spray: Firefighters let home burn”
This article may be a bit dated, but it’s an intriguing story about the difficult moral situations that sometimes come about in markets. In most urban areas, property or sales…
Should the Fed Open its Balance Sheet to the Securities Dealers? A Lesson from the Recent Wild Swings in the Repo Rate
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new” -Socrates If the Fed's understanding of the existing problems in…
What Rules Inflation Targeting? A Time for Abandoning Taylor Rule
“No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.” ? Haruki Murakami Following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), most central banks around…
Central Counterparties: When Monetary Policy is Not Enough
The overall picture of the U.S. economy, though far from stable, is hardly threatening. For instance, U.S. payrolls grew by 128,000 in October. Nevertheless, the Fed cut the interest rate…
Is Libra Money? Depends on Where in Credit Cycle We Are
“What institutions build, they can destroy." Anonymous Mark Zuckerberg's testimony to Congress on October 24th, 2019, created anxieties on whether Facebook would circumvent financial regulators as it readies its planned…
Quantitative Easing: No Words to Describe It
“Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality." - Edgar Allan Poe The experience of the global financial crisis (GFC) was a painful…