Posted by GTG on March 28, 2008
Ebenezer Scrooge, at the peak of his miserliness, labelled Christmas ‘humbug’. Economists, on the other hand, label it ‘economically inefficient’ - proving that we are not just depressingly dismal creatures, but incoherent ones at that.
Professor Joel Waldfogel of Wharton was the first such Christmas-bashing economist. In his 1993 paper, “The Deadweight Loss of Christmas“, he argued that Christmas - as well as all other occasions where gifts are given or exchanged - imposed a cost on the economy. Why? Because the recipient usually does not value the gift as much as the giver had paid for it. That’s why you see so many new expensive-looking ties being auctioned off on eBay at $0.01 on Boxing day.
Waldfogel estimated that the total cost of Christmas to the American economy in 1992 alone was 
between $4 billion to $13 billion - roughly equal to the loss imposed by taxes.
Is Santa really as bad as the IRS?
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Posted by GTG on March 20, 2008
Nothing is sacred to economists -seemingly “priceless” things such as marriage to happiness have all gone under the economic knife to be analysed and price-tagged.
Even life itself is not spared. Using a range of novel methods to tease out exactly how much people value their own life (asking them directly is unlikely to work), economists have been able to calculate its value. Studies put the average life to be worth $6.1 million.
Combine this information with a recent BBC report which directs our attention to the grisly trade of human bodies. Turns out even our corpses have quite a fair bit of monetary value - how does $7,000 for your heart valves and $6,000 for your corneas sound?
Since dying is now getting more lucrative (for your relatives, not you unfortunately), and given that we can quantify the value of life in dollars and cents, it poses the uncomfortable question: when do we start being worth more dead than if we are alive?
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Posted by GTG on March 13, 2008
The house where famous 18th century philosopher and economist Adam Smith lived in until his death in 1790 has been put up for sale for £700,000.
My bet is that is what the “father of capitalism” - whose firm belief that market forces allocate resources more efficiently than any amount of human planning is capable of shaped modern economic thinking - would have wanted.
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Posted by GTG on March 10, 2008
So he can fly faster than a speeding bullet and saves the world from dastardly criminals. But will society benefit on the whole if we introduce Superman into our midst? New economic research implies maybe not.
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Posted in Sports, Wacky | Tagged: Superman, Tiger Woods | 2 Comments »
Posted by GTG on March 7, 2008
What do you see in this picture?
Some see mystery. Some see adventure. Most see trouble and run away screaming. But political scientist John Hickman sees a potential customer.
In his article, “Problems of Interplanetary and Interstellar Trade”, Hickman predicts that interplanetary trade could become a primary economic driver for space exploration. When there’s money to be made off E.T. and co., expect more companies to start building spaceships.
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between $4 billion to $13 billion - roughly equal to the loss imposed by taxes. 
