FDIC Takes Aim at Bank Arbitrage Profits
The FDIC has imposed a fee that makes it more expensive for banks to borrow in the overnight ‘repo’ market. The intent appears to be to reduce easy arbitrage profits for big banks and smooth credit markets in the long term. Read More »
Financial Reform and Conflict Minerals
The Dodd-Frank reform bill includes a provision that prohibits companies from using conflict minerals (gold, titanium, tungsten), the mining of which yields profits that have financed wars in the Congo. Read More »
I Can See Clearly Now
What if $10 could buy you a 50 percent increase in how much a child learned in a school year? On Marketplace today, Stephen J. Dubner reports on how two economists, Paul Glewwe (rhymes with ‘heavy’) and Albert Park, improved test scores by giving away $10 eyeglasses to schoolchildren with poor eyesight in China’s rural Read More »
The Return of the Russian Billionaires
After getting crushed by falling commodity prices two years ago, their ranks cut by 70 percent, Russian billionaires are back and more plentiful than ever. According to a recent study, Russia currently has 114 billionaires, more than the 101 it had in 2007. Read More »
and 
. If you haven’t seen it yet, the movie features Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, and was made by a dream team of documentary directors. Paste Magazine named it one of the 