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Dementia is a Hydra: Care v. Cure.

Care versus cure is the current dilemma within dementia research. Is it ethical to prioritise resources to find a cure? Is this even possible? What is the projected timeframe? Clinical trials are long, costly procedures and bringing a drug to... continue reading

Property Tax Limitations, Hoarding Disorder, and Observed Hoarding Behavior

Individuals with a hoarding disorder (HD) have difficulty discarding or giving away possessions. HD often leads to an accumulation of materials over time that can greatly affect the quality of life for hoarders and their families. To my knowledge... continue reading

Geographic Isolation and Pork Barrel Projects

In The Political Economy of Benefits and Costs: A Neoclassical Approach to Distributive Politics (Journal of Political Economy, 1981), Weingast, Shepsle and Johnsen lay out the costs and benefits of geographically earmarked pork barrel spending.... continue reading

Two Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms Tease Apart Hemp, CBDA and THCA Expressing Cannabis

The classification of Cannabis varieties has been increasingly discussed in the past years, particularly within the scope of intellectual property development and protection Henry 2016. Several... continue reading

The Atlas of human Interests

Are the Japanese more interested in nanotechnology than the German? How many people want to become musicians? Are salespeople conscientious? In the Behavioral Sciences, studies on the diversity of human interests are scarce. Comprehending better... continue reading

A Comparative Historical Political Economy Approach to Tariffs and Economic Development

In his influential book, Kicking Away the Ladder (2002), Ha-Joon Chang explains that developed nations like the US used protectionist policies like high tariffs to develop. This argument is in direct contrast to the view that laissez-faire... continue reading

The Political Economy of the National Historic Register

In 1966, the U.S. Congress passed the National Historic Preservation Act. The Act created the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) to catalog all of the nation’s important historical objects, buildings, and areas. The National Register is... continue reading

Textbook Coverage of Inframarginal Externalities

Externalities are an important concept in economics as they are one of the many potential issues with markets. Negative externalities, for example, occur when costs are imposed on others outside the market system. Air pollution is but one example.... continue reading

The Economics of Meal Plan Requirements in Higher Education

Many colleges and universities require full-time undergraduate students to purchase a full meal plan as long as they live on-campus. To students this can often feel like they are being exploited, especially given the high average meal cost of... continue reading

The Effect of Smoking Bans on Exercising by Non-smokers

Smoking bans have shown to have many effects, some intended, some unintended, like Adams and Cotti's (2008, Journal of Public Economics) finding that smoking bans led to more fatal accidents from drunk driving. The mechanism is that smokers were... continue reading