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
Alchian-Allen Effect in Higher Education
The Alchian-Allen Theorem states that when there are two substitute goods of differing quality and a fixed per unit amount is added to the cost of the product, consumption will shift towards the higher quality good as it is relatively cheaper. The... continue reading
Stonehenge A Neolithic Beacon: Design Imitates Star
When lit from within with one large fire or multiple fires, and observed from above, the standing stones that comprise Stonehenge split the light rays creating a radiating effect similar in appearance to a star.
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Neolithic People... continue reading
Plant Organismal Development Based Building Design and Perpetuated Construction
This idea seeks to establish a novel conceptual framework to building design and construction that is based on plant organismal development. Firstly lets compare the idea of design as it applies to architecture and plant development. Once... continue reading
Social Jailbreak: a social media aggregator designed to circumvent social media monopolies
Social Jailbreak (SJB) describes a proposed viral application that would allow social media users to communicate beyond the limits imposed by social media monopolies. Several platforms (e.g. Hootsuite) and some social networks (mainly... continue reading
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