Ask an Economist
Welcome to Ask an Economist, a public service of the Department of Economics at Iowa State University, designed to answer your economic questions.
Our talented faculty and alumni can answer questions on a variety of economic topics to help you make more informed choices about your day-to-day decisions--or to just add a more reasoned voice when talk of the economy comes up around the dinner table.
Questions & Answers
The question is interesting, provocative, and borderline polemical. Economics is not pure science. In physical science, lab experiments have repeatability and reproducibility.
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.
I appreciate your sharing your view on a specific policy issue based on the systematic application of economic concepts.
Without a doubt, demand has outpaced supply over the past 18 months. In labor markets, there are currently 4.9 million more jobs available than there are individuals looking for work (i.e., comparing job openings from the JOLTS release to th
Without a doubt, demand has outpaced supply over the past 18 months. In labor markets, there are currently 4.9 million more jobs available than there are individuals looking for work (i.e., comparing job openings from the JOLTS release to th
I believe the question being asked is how to calculate what an NIL deal might be worth to a college athlete? In particular, the focus of the question also seems to be on determining what a college athlete could get paid to be a sponsor, a sp
Yes, it is as you say. A production externality is generated when the production activities of one firm adversely or positively affects the production activities of another firm.
That's a bit like asking which of your two eyes is more important. As in many cases in economics, the answer to your question is: it depends. There are markets where, at a point in time, supply is more important.
The question you asked is complicated, but I think it boils down to: “do longer commute times lead to community decline?”.
I am unaware of any discussions pertaining to a Marshall-like plan for the Russian economy presently.
The official digital Yuan issued by the central bank of China does not has the expiration date.
There is a lot in this question to digest: the trade war, impacts by farm size, and the effectiveness of government support. For the soybean market, the U.S.-China trade dispute did have a significant impact. Roughly half of U.S.
How do you personally live your best life?
People sometimes have different ideas in mind when considering home price appreciation. Most conventional discussions do not adjust for inflation. A more nuanced consideration could account for rises in the general price level, i.e., i
Running a business is always risky, and owning an auto mechanic shop is no different. Your concern about changing technology is interesting because I see two main avenues of change.
Economics provides a framework for understanding aspects of individual and collective behavior. In particular, economics focuses on how individuals and societies allocate resources. Economists also offer important insights about how di
Yes, more timely inflation measures do exist. For example, academics have used new data-gathering techniques, referred to as "big data", to create daily inflation measures; see, e.g., the Billion Prices Project (...
Continue Reading AnswerIt is not a necessity to use a seasonally adjusted data for VAR and Granger Causality.
As you wrote, to compute concentration ratios, you would need data on quantities produced or sold (property appraisals in your case) and a reasonable market definition, which can be a separate challenge on its own.
You asked how a monopolist might use marketing campaigns to increase profit. As you discussed, marketing efforts would likely result in consumers willing to pay more, shifting the demand out. This can only be good news for the firm if
Indeed, one answer to a fundamental question in international trade -- why do countries trade? -- is that specialization based on comparative advantage leads to gains from trade for all countries.
Printing more money does not solve a country’s financial problems, rather it would exacerbate those. Suppose an economy prints more money, it would mean that the consumers can now buy more goods or a greater quantity of the same good.
First, it is important to understand what a proportional or regressive tax means. A proportional tax system requires all taxpayers to pay the same proportion of their income regardless of how much money they earn.
When the Fed raises interest rates, it raises the cost of borrowing by firms which raises their cost of doing business. That induces firms to hire less, delay or eliminate capacity expansions, etc.
The term you’re looking for is “non-rivalry.” Rival goods (in contrast to non-rival goods) are the standard stuff of economics: chairs, computers, etc.