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Flying: weigh more, pay more?
I saw an article earlier discussing whether people who weigh more should pay more to fly. (It reminds me of one of Tim Harford’s ‘Dear Economist articles’ on how to split a taxi fare on a trip home...
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If you’re not paying for it…
A quote I saw somewhere recently (sorry, I don’t have the link now): If you’re not paying for something, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold. This is partly why I don’t read free...
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Let there be light
I’ve come across this a few times over the years, and been meaning to post it the next time I saw the numbers somewhere. And today I have, here: In 1800, a candle providing one hour’s light cost six...
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Earth to reach boiling point in 400 years
As an ex-physicist who realises later in life that he’d probably rather have studied economics, I’d like to paraphrase from an interesting article by Tom Murphy. It uses fundamental physics to argue...
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Healthcare expenditure -v- life expectancy
A smart way to reduce the risk of confusing correlation with causation, especially when comparing different countries, is to plot the two variables of interest over time. Here’s a nice example, showing...
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Nudges, webforms and cookies
They can designed to be in your best interests (as in the libertarian paternalism espoused in Thaler’s and Sunstein’s book, Nudge) but also in someone else’s best interest. One small way is the...
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Expensive browsing
A few links have come my way recently on using internet browsers to price discriminate. Via Cheap Talk, from the WSJ: Orbitz Worldwide Inc. has found that people who use Apple Inc.’s Mac computers...
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Get rich or die tryin’ (to spend it)
My boss pulled up in his brand new BMW today and I couldn’t help but admire it. “Nice car,” I said as he got out. “Well,” he said, noticing my admiring looks, “Work hard, put the hours in, and I’ll...
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Good things come in small packages
One way companies can try to increase profit margins is to reduce the quantity sold, whilst retaining the same price point – hopefully without the customer realising. So for example, a cereal...
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Coasting along
I’m following Marginal Revolution University’s new online course on Development Economics. Efficient transportation networks are a well-recognised factor contributing to enhanced prosperity by...
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God save the queen
THE best thing about being monarch is the huge amount of money you get, the Queen has confirmed. It is understood the Queen later telephoned the King Juan Carlos of Spain, said ’38 million’ and then...
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Being poor in a rich country
The FT has an article today with ‘the one chart that explains the world’. The vertical axis refers to the distribution of global incomes. The horizontal axis segments citizens of different countries...
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When the wind blows
I looked today at investing into a company setting up a small wind turbine. I’ll keep the numbers round for confidentiality reasons. £700k start-up costs, with a 75% chance in any year of generating...
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Nature of the firm
A fundamental change over the 20th century, paraphrased from a Paul Graham article: In the early 20th century, big companies were synonymous with efficiency, as compared to delivering a product using a...
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