Category: Economics

This is a multipart series on digital economics. More here. It seems like movies have been through a lot of traumatic change in recent decades: VCRs, DVDs, streaming, pirating, the collapse of movie theater attendance. So the movie industry seems like a great candidate for reviewing how digital economics disrupts industries. But what’s surprising is the movie industry… Continue reading Digital Economics: Movies

This is a multipart series on digital economics. More here. The economics of digital products are odd because once you’ve produced the product the cost of making copies is nearly zero. For example it may cost some fixed money up front to record a song, but once you’ve got the final track it’s nearly zero added cost to make duplicates.… Continue reading Digital Economics: The Zero Marginal Cost Economy

This is a multipart series on digital economics. More here. Markets have been pushing us more and more towards a bi-polar world, where products are either superstar successes or lonely niche players. What I’d like to do in this post is write up what’s behind this trend. So fair warning, this post is just a laundry… Continue reading Digital Economics: The Hollow Middle

Most economists are against price gouging laws, which make it illegal to raise prices during a natural disaster. The shortages and long gas lines after Hurricane Sandy showed the consequences of these laws. Let’s riff on Eric’s zombie post to give price gouging a fresh look. Eric pointed out that Hurricane Sandy shows how every single zombie… Continue reading Repeal price gouging laws now. Why? Zombie apocalypse.

It is hard to overstate the influence of Bentley University’s Scott Sumner on monetary policy since he started blogging at The Money Illusion in Feb 2009. Sumner has pushed economists close to acknowledging that the Fed is to blame for one of the largest economic policy disasters since the Great Depression.

Olympic medal count predictions are good fun, especially by economists who put a model behind them. But with the Olympics over it’s already hard to care much about the medal race between China and the US. But maybe that’s because we used the wrong economists. You know, ones who are alive. Perhaps the best economist to… Continue reading Ricardo does the medal count