Category: Online News

John Stossel — Tragedy of the Commons

In this Stossel in the Classroom segment, Stossel analyzes the issues around common resources and public goods. In the opening interview, many people believe public versions of items are better and often cite the lack of a price as the main reason for selecting that over a private item. The same people are quick to point out that a public toilet doesn’t have the same connotation because people overuse it and don’t take care of the resources because no one owns it.

This clips is beneficial to talk about how tragedy of the commons can be overcome by assigning property rights to a business and turning it into a private good.

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Vox — Expensive Wine is For Suckers

Vox goes through the popular wine test tasting to show that many drinkers are able to distinguishes between cheap and expensive wines, but that doesn’t mean that people actually liked the expensive wines. Often, people rated the expensive and cheap wines similarly. Even when it comes to experts, they often aren’t able to identify the same wine presented in a mix of other wines.

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NPR Planet Money — The Price Tag Hasn’t Always Existed

 

Really neat summary of the history of the price tag. This could make a great opening for a principles course or a good example of price discrimination before the price tag was invented. The price tag can be used as an example of the Quaker’s insistence on the law of one price or the idea of efficiency/equity tradeoffs. I like to use this video in the beginning of my course to introduce the idea of prices, values, and costs.

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BBC — 200 Countries, 200 years, 4 minutes

What does the world look like (wealth and health) over the past 200 years, but squeezed into 4 minutes. Hans Rosling looks at the change in a income and life expectancy for countries across the world over the past 200 years. What’s nice about this visualization is that it’s color coded to be able to show how different regions changed over time. We can also see how globalization has affected major countries like China, Japan, and India.

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John Stossel — The Economics of Sports Stadium

John Stossel is back to discuss sports stadiums (mega events) and why their subsidies aren’t worth the investments from an economic standpoint. Along with economist, JC Bradbury, Stossel investigates the counterfactual to the claim that stadiums and mega events will become an economic boom to cities and states.

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NY Times — The 1998 NFL Draft: A Look Back at the Epic Ryan Leaf Bust

 

One of the struggles with hiring workers is evaluating talent, specifically for college athletes considering the NFL. In 1998, Ryan Leaf appeared to be the top college athlete even with some questionable character flaws. The Colts, instead, chose to select Peyton Manning with their first pick of the draft despite some criticism. Manning went on to be one of the winningest QBs in NFL history while Ryan Leaf is considered one of the biggest NFL busts in the history of the league. This clip from the New York Time’s Retro Reporting division revisits that controversial decision.

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The National — Bread Collusion in Canada

Over the past 15 years bakers in Canada have been colluding to raise the price of bread across many of Canada’s major retailers. The retailers (allegedly) agreed to the price increase so long as the others in the group also maintained the high prices. While some of the retailers are denying the claim, Canada’s Competition Bureau is developing a case to expose the participants.

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Reason TV — Why Stadium Subsidies Always Win: Q&A with J.C. Bradbury

Local municipalities often dump significant resources into funding sports stadiums in the hopes of attracting economic benefits from additional tourism. Despite criticism from nearly every economist, economic impact reports are designed and pitched to citizens as the justification for subsidizing sports teams. In this interview, JC Bradbury discusses the counterfactual of tourists’ true impact and how these stadiums continue to be funded.

If you’d like more to read more about sports stadiums and funding, check out Field of Schemes.

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Marketplace — The Problem with NAFTA

A brief background of NAFTA and the problems of exiting NAFTA. A good discussion within the video covers the parties that gain and the parties that loses from NAFTA. A good note in the video is that the jobs that are lost are different from the jobs that were gained.

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