“Less than an hour after we started, the randomization was complete and the immediate future of 1,800 women was determined.”
Detroit Produce City?
Detroit is practically a giant food desert, with no produce-carrying grocery chains left and its citizens resorting to local raccoon and pheasant meat. According to Mark Dowie in Guernica, that makes Detroit a prime candidate for the world’s first “100 percent food-self-sufficient city.” Read More »
Why My Wife Doesn't Cook Dinner
We teach that people make decisions comparing marginal benefit to marginal cost. We labor economists apply this to decisions about work, telling students to compare the return (the wage) to the opportunity cost (the value of non-market time). Read More »
Random Lives in Northern Uganda
I went to northern Uganda to observe an economic experiment — a randomized program intervention focused on highly vulnerable women in the region. The program, Women’s Income Generating Support (WINGS), is being implemented by the Association of Volunteers in International Service (AVSI) and will provide the women with grants and business training.
Due to resource constraints, the women will receive the intervention in two different phases, allowing a team of economists to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. Read More »
Is Somebody Lying About "Cash for Clunkers"?
Congress set aside $1 billion to fund the program. If all of that money was going to pay these subsidies, there would be enough money to pay for 250,000 clunkers.
The program went into place on July 24th. One week later, the program was said to be out of money.
In 2006, before the current ills of the automakers, the average number of new cars sold in a week in the United States was 125,000. Read More »
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