Economics

For decades, cruise companies have gone to great lengths to bypass US employment laws, hiring foreign workers for less than $2/hour. They’ve sheltered themselves as foreign entities while simultaneously benefitting from US taxpayer-funded agencies and resources.

When the Venetian merchant Marco Polo got to China, he saw many wonders. One of the things that astonished him most, however, was a new invention, implemented by Kublai Khan, a grandson of the great conqueror Genghis. It was paper money, introduced by Kublai in 1260.

To the average buyer, airline ticket prices appear to fluctuate without reason. But behind the process is actually the science of dynamic pricing, which has less to do with cost and more to do with artificial intelligence.

Wall Street’s latest real estate grab has ballooned to roughly $60 billion, representing hundreds of thousands of properties. In some communities, it has fundamentally altered housing ecosystems in ways we’re only now beginning to understand, fueling a housing recovery without a homeowner recovery.

The decoy effect is defined as the phenomenon whereby consumers change their preference between two options when presented with a third option – the “decoy” – that is “asymmetrically dominated”. It is also referred to as the “attraction effect” or “asymmetric dominance effect”.

One of the most important economic stories of the past couple of decades is the rise of economic inequality in the United States and around the world. Since 1980, economists say, wage growth for the highest-paid workers has been roughly triple that for the lowest paid. In some cities, the disparity is wider.

Commercial airlines often prioritize boarding for passengers traveling with small children, or for those who need extra assistance, before starting to board the faster passengers. It’s counter-intuitive, but it turns out that letting slower passengers board first actually results in a more efficient process.

In Pakistan, China and the U.S. are clashing over China’s One Belt, One Road initiative. To understand what’s at stake, it helps to take a look at why China is in Pakistan in the first place.

In the wake of the 737 MAX disasters, caused by a software feature, Boeing and regulators initially placed blame on the planes’ pilots. Since Samya Stumo’s death in a 737 MAX crash, her parents and her great-uncle, Ralph Nader, have devoted themselves to proving that the company put profit over safety.

The shopping mall would have been inconceivable without air conditioning, as would the deep-plan and glass-walled office block, as would computer servers. The expansion of tract housing in postwar suburban America relied on affordable domestic air conditioning units.

A dizzying array of variables affects a portfolio of debt’s true potential — the age of the debt, how many agencies have tried to collect on it, the size of the balances, the type of credit card, where the debtors live and the current economic climate.

You turn the pages of yellowing student newspapers from 30 years ago, and there they are, recognisably the same faces that dominate today’s British news. Boris Johnson running for Union president, Michael Gove winning debating contests, Jeremy Hunt holding together the faction-ridden Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA).

Some major textbooks feature illustrations of Texas Instruments–series calculators alongside the text, so students can use their Texas Instruments calculator with the lesson plan, emphasizing how deeply interwoven Texas Instruments remains with the educational hegemony.

Increase your output, get paid more. Wages go up with productivity. Until, it turns out, they don’t anymore. The unwinding of this agreement in recent decades, such that workers must continue to produce more without expecting it to show up in their pay stubs, has now been the subject of a good deal of discussion and debate.

Because my father believed that debt was sinful, and believed God wanted him and my mom to have as many kids as possible, they were too broke to help me pay for college. Because of this anti-debt theology, I wasn’t allowed to take out student loans, and had to attend a really conservative Christian college because it was so cheap.

Just one per cent of Sweden’s GDP circulates as cash. As debates over the need for cash rage along lines of age, wealth and location, the country is looking to create a digital currency.

Many of the recent political shifts in the West—the election of Donald Trump, the rise of populism in Europe and Brexit—can be partially attributed to the fear of mass migration. Yet increasing migration is one of the quickest ways to make the world richer.

Economists are terrified of how slow growth, low inflation and low interest rates could hit the economy. The Financial Times’ US economics editor Brendan Greeley explains why.

Once the seat of the roman empire, it is now home to a surprisingly robust yet temperamental economy. The economy of Italy followed a path very similar to that of Germany’s all be it with a little more flamboyancy which has found them where they are today.

I can’t explain airline pricing but I do know some plane tickets can be cheaper depending on where you buy them or, even better, where you appear to buy them from. This is all about leveraging foreign currencies and points-of-sale to your advantage.

Despite the obvious vulnerability of the sector, boards/CEOs of the six largest airlines have spent 96% of their free cash flow on share buybacks, bolstering the share price and compensation of management… who now want a bailout. They should be allowed to fail.

In 2017, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) found that 8.4 million households in the U.S. were without bank accounts. Nearly 53 percent of these households listed “not having enough money” to put into an account as the reason why, while another 30 percent cited not trusting banks.

The major chains — AMC, Regal Entertainment and Cinemark — no longer rely on teenage ushers to keep the floors from getting sticky. Instead, they have turned to a vast immigrant workforce, often hired through layers of subcontractors. That arrangement makes it almost impossible for janitors to make a living wage.

The current Boeing 737s, the world’s most flown craft, are all longer than the original by up to 45 feet. And yet, on the inside, we’re getting squeezed. That’s because more space doesn’t equal more space in Airline World. It equals more seats—and typically less room per person.