- “A September 2018 article from Eater tells us that Miguel Gonzalez delivers directly to 120 New York restaurants. As an avocado supplier, he works with farms in Mexico’s Michoacán state. To maintain consistency and minimize bruising, he monitors truck temperatures and how the boxes are stacked during their 2600 (or so) mile journey.”
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What happens when you raise the tariff on a commodity? Who do you think will (ultimately) pay? Econ texts give you the answer – this article provides an example.
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.. - “Across the United States, a similar cocktail seems to be keeping inflation at bay: Employers are reluctant to charge more, unsure how consumers will react, and they’ve found an untapped supply of workers. It’s partly great news. More Americans are getting jobs than policymakers once thought possible, and wages and prices aren’t spinning out of control the way history would predict.”
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Think you know macroeconomics? Short answer: you never really do. The NYT provides an example of a conundrum that is keeping the Federal Reserve up at night: full employment, low inflation. A nice problem to have, right? You’d have thought so…
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.. - “Economists have written about topics that we would now classify under the headings of “microeocnomics” or “macroeconomics” for centuries. But the terms themselves are much more recent, emerging only in the early 1940s. For background, I turn to the entry on “Microeconomics” by Hal R. Varian published in The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, dating back to the first edition in 1987.”
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On the etymology of micro and macroeconomics.
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.. - “Belloy’s misfortune stemmed from more than bad luck. He was the victim of unscrupulous traders known simply as operators, who might sell fake elevator receipts, or move prices in their favor by spreading false news. Or they might pull off an especially cunning manipulation known as a corner, in which they would buy future wheat while simultaneously buying all physical wheat.Later, when it came time for the operator to take delivery of his future wheat, the other trader had to first go buy some. But there was none. The operator owned it all. Thus trapped, or cornered, the victim had no choice but to pay whatever price the operator demanded. Cornering was the ruin of many a trader, like our Belloy, to whom the only apparent recourse was to find the nearest saloon and shoot himself in the head.”
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Rarely are classes in financial economics so very entertaining. A lovely history (maybe apocryphal, who knows) about the early days of the CBOT in Chicago.
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.. - “There is no simple remedy for the curse of knowledge, but let me offer a suggestion. Keep a particular person in mind as you teach. That person should be someone you know well—a parent, a spouse, or a best friend (as long as that person is not an economist). Pretend you are explaining the material to them. Are they getting it, or are they lost? If you know this person well, you may be able to more easily empathize with their learning challenges. You might prevent
yourself from going overboard.”
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N. Gregory Mankiw comes up with a short six point guideline about how to teach economics better. It is worth going over this list, irrespective of whether you are learning economics or teaching it. Also, taken a look at Eli5?