Ask an Economist
Would the transition be better if I pursued pure mathematics instead, because my experiences has been lately in proof making? What can I look forward to? How and what should I be looking into, to start off, if economics is a good choice? I am a highly curious person. Plus, I have worked hard, I have been doing pure mathematics on my own since 2004 until presently; but, it has been slow going; so, I thought that by going into something that has a better return in investments of my intellectual energy, I should try microeconomics?
The prospect of a mid-life career change would be daunting for anyone. In the end, you’ll have to make that difficult decision on your own. But I can give you a few tips on how you might begin to explore whether a career in economics...
After about a month when the commodity has less than 2 weeks of shelf life it may be sold at .69/lb and then discarded after another week.
1) Why would the store not further discount these items at let's say .30/lb to clear the complete stock? ( I understand it is so as not to let the global/US prices of the commodity go down.)
2) Is wasting better for the store than to sell it at a discount?
3) Even if customers stop buying fresh commodity and start to wait until the price goes down to .30/lb. Isn't it economically profitable to the store to actually sell it than waste it ?
Thanks
Food waste arises from preferences, incentives, and constraints. Retailers have time and other resource constraints which implies that it simply will not be worth it to sell every last item of food in every instance. It can be said that there is...
Okay, so this is going to be a really stupid question but I need to know the answer to this. There is a message board about collecting video games and we got into a argument about the definition of the word "rarity." With these games, we all know the exact amount of copies printed for each title. Say Game A has 2000 copies printed and Game B has 5000 copies printed. Assuming that no copies are lost or destroyed, Game A will always be rarer, correct? Someone else is arguing that the availability of copies on the secondary market changes this.
If Game A has 20 copies available on the marketplace right now and Game B only has 2 copies, would Game B be considered to be rarer overall? At that moment in time, sure, but overall, I would say no. Is either of us correct? Would the monetary value of the game on the secondary market change the definition of rarity? Thanks for your time!
In the strictest (or standard) sense of the word, you would be correct that game A is “rarer,” given that there are fewer of these in existence than game B. However, the other person is not totally wrong because, in the words of economists, the “...
To start, I’ll clarify a couple pieces of the question. First, from Lacy et al. (2019): A binding price floor is a legal minimum price, set by the government, at which a good can be sold. Second, while we often think of producers as the suppliers...
Disclaimer. The following is not intended as investment advice. You should consult a financial advisor who knows the tax and real estate issues related to New York City as there are likely many factors to consider.
First,...
This is an interesting observation. We regularly see spatial clustering of similar establishments for a number of reasons including natural advantage, agglomeration economies, zoning, social networks, and "norms" shaping location decisions...
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.htm
Did they make a mistake - in their report of gasoline prices (or have I've misunderstood something)?
They reported a July unadjusted percent change - for gasoline (all types) = .2%
(see link below)
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t01.htm
I follow gasoline prices - as reported by the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA), and by others like the AAA. The EIA and AAA reports for July - were consistent. Their reports showed a July increase of - approximately 20 cents / gallon.
If the EIA & AAA reports are correct, the July unadjusted percent change (for all types of gasoline) was: .20 / 3.66 = 5.47%
not: .2%
Such a sizable difference - would significantly impact the reported CPI, and other averages.
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Here's the relevant EIA data:
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https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=EMM_EPM0_PTE_NUS_DPG&f=W
At the beginning of July, EIA reports for U.S. gasoline price [all grades all formulations] were:
On 06/26/2023 - They reported all grades all formulations = 3.685
On 07/03/2023 - They reported all grades all formulations = 3.643
An estimate for 07/01/2023 - using the 06/26 and 07/03 prices - was 3.66
On 07/31/2023 - EIA reported [all grades all formulations] gasoline price = 3.869
So their prices indicate a July increase of 20 cents / gallon.
Note: The same exercise was done using the EIA Regular Gasoline Prices - which also showed an increase of about 20 cents / gallon.
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Here's the relevant AAA report (Aug 3):
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https://gasprices.aaa.com/increases-at-the-pump-slow-and-more-relief-could-be-on-the-way/
A key statement in their Aug 3rd report says,
"Today’s national average of $3.82 is 29 cents more than a month ago"
Any thoughts you might have regarding my question of the July BLS report - is greatly appreciated…
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The EIA website - also has History spreadsheet (with comprehensive data)
https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/
https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/xls/pswrgvwall.xls
The following is a snapshot of the EIA report regarding Regular Gasoline Prices on 07/03:
price was 3.527, and change was -0.044 from week ago - from which I noticed about the same 20 cents / gallon increase in July, for regular gasoline.
The BLS reports Consumer Price Indices which are different from nominal prices reported by other sources mentioned in the question. The BLS index measures price change from a designated reference date (the reference base for most of the items is...
By definition, revenue equals price of product times the number of units of the product sold. If revenue grows by 3% (in dollar terms) and inflation is 6%, it means there is negative "real" growth, meaning the purchasing power of that revenue...
Most economists would start to answer this question by asking a question: what is the objective you have in mind, and why? Specifically, what problem are you trying to solve for which the solution is a wealth cap? Wealth is a stock, of past...
1) Now? The event sold out yesterday. There are likely many desperate and disappointed fans.
2) Close to the concert date? It'll get a lot of hype in the days leading up to the event.
3) somewhere in between?
[The following guidance provided herein is of a generic nature and derived from overarching principles of economics. It is not intended to be construed as particularized counsel with respect to Taylor Swift performances or the...
Members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) take a broad range of information into account when forming their economic forecasts, including considering how changes to fiscal policies may affect the economy. One way to get a sense of...
Thanks for asking. This is a good and long-lasting debated question in Economics. As reported, the recent fertility rate in Canada is around 1.4, which is relatively low because the subsistence level is 2.1. I believe the Canadian...
For example, $10,000. Every state must provide the Federal government with $10,000 per person, but the Federal government does not care how they put that money together. Important to mention that there is no federal corporate tax rate in this hypothetical. They look at California and send a tax bill for $392 billion (39.24 million people * $10,000)
How California, or any state, comes up with that tax bill is completely irrelevant. They could do an income tax, a sales tax, a levy on product sales, a corporate tax rate, a fee on produce (grapes?), whatever. Every state is then forced into a competition for the most efficient and balanced tax system possible; as well as the most efficient use of spending possible. At least in theory without a lot of exceptions and corner cases (I’d still keep the IRS around for tariffs).
Thoughts? I’m sure it’s a dumb idea but I want to hear the logic why. I’ve asked this question a few places without answers yet, but feel this may give the best answer.
This is an interesting thought experiment. Many factors must be considered, and it is difficult to address them all at once, but here are some important ones. First, the regressivity of the lump sum tax would entail equity concerns that have...
According to Motoyama, Sadaki, and Watanabe (2016), "on a global scale, the carcass production of Wagyu is quite limited, equivalent to about 2% of beef carcass production in the United States (11,698,479 t) and Brazil (9,675,000 t), 4% of that...
No, it's not possible; that is, the Federal Reserve can always pay IORB. The reason is simple: unlike an ordinary bank, the Fed's liabilities are in units (dollars) that it creates. Put differently, unlike a private business, the Fed...
Agricultural land returns on investment do compare favorably to U.S. stock market returns over longer time horizons. Bruce Sherrick, an economist with the University of Illinois, summarized the relationships among farmland returns, other...
In my personal opinion, due to abject poverty, it makes a lot of sense to control the population, however my friend was of the opinion that based on reality on the ground, poor people need to have more children that will support them financially by doing jobs and bringing more cash home. If a poor family has 1 or 2 children, then the economic contributors to support family living would be less and the family would find basic survival more difficult, i.e. to make ends meet.
So, from an economist's point of view, what is the better option for a poor family from a poor country, to control its family offspring or have more offspring that will support it to make ends meet?
Both opinion from you and your friends make sense but there are some important factors missing. The decision of having one more child or not depends on how parents weigh benefit versus the cost associated with that child. The cost of having a...
At any point in time, there are *many* bonds traded: a vast majority are bonds that were issued in the past, but have not yet matured, and a relatively small number of bonds are bonds that are being newly issued. When interest rates increase,...
It is certainly true that disposing of milk or other agricultural commodities once produced is inefficient. The producers receive no income from commodities that are discarded, while there are consumers who would benefit from these...
You have asked an interesting (and open-ended) question to begin with. An issue with answering questions regarding capital and Socialism is that they get lost in the political thicket, although given the nature of the question, politics is...
What seemed obvious to me, though, was that charging $2 per pound and selling 2,000 pounds of apples results in a gross earning of $4,000, while if the producer still charged $4 per pound and only produced the 1,000 pounds of apples that he could sell at that price he would still make $4,000. Why then should the producer work twice as hard by producing 2,000 to sell at $2 per pound when only producing 1,000 pounds of apples and selling them at a price of $4 earns the exact same amount of money? Both options are meeting the maximum demand for the apples at their respective price levels and making the same amount of money, so why should the producer strive to reach market equilibrium if that means, in this case, working twice as hard for the same profit? Wouldn't that be horribly inefficient?
Thank you for your time.
Your question relates to what we teach in our Principles of Microeconomics courses: “The Law of Supply.” Indeed, producing 4,000 pounds of apples and charging $4 per pound creates a surplus in this specific market you describe....
The Male Female Wage Gap in Iowa compared to the U.S. by Peter F. Orazem and Levi Soborowicz
The Current Population Survey March Supplement includes questions about the last year’s annua earnings. The survey includes...
The answer is hidden in your question. The company hedges to mitigate risk, to guard against excessive downturns in profit. It “pays” for this risk protection by potentially foregoing some profit. There is of course a risk-return tradeoff.
...In religion a hypothesis is presented as being fact without any credible test to validate its accuracy.
In economics, there is no laboratory testing of hypotheses and no mathematical formulas predicting future outcomes. Economics therefore qualifies as a religion. Do you agree?
The question is interesting, provocative, and borderline polemical. Economics is not pure science. In physical science, lab experiments have repeatability and reproducibility. A sincere modern-day scientist can replicate the lab results of an...
My question is this:
If we factor in the size reduction and substitute ingredients, the adjusted retail price of the two pack of candy is significant less than 35 cents in 2022 dollars. How do we then explain the fact that today the price is often over $1.00 per ounce and even when purchased in bulk packages it is commonly 40-50 cents per ounce or more?
(Please feel free to use your own numbers and data if that would help)
Thanks again!
Think of a bundle of goods bought at $1 in 1928. This bundle would consist of many goods. The average increase in bundle price would be $17.31 in 2022. The idea is to recognize that the price of some commodities in the bundle would have increased...
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