I still use cash, in part because I think it makes me more mindful about spending money. Counting out the bills gives me time to think: do I really want to buy this? And yet, despite being a careful shopper and a cheapskate, I make mistakes. Thinking about these helps me to be better in… [Read More]
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Gifts and the Singularity of Common Life Events
One of the ways that bloggers get ideas is to look for things that people search for. One day, in my site statistics, I found that someone had found this using the search terms “cheap married people poor gift giving -wedding”. The searcher ended up at this post on the economics of gifts. Those search… [Read More]
Gabon: “Tropic Moon” by Georges Simenon
Georges Simenon was a Belgian writer best known for his detective stories. He wrote literary novels, too, like this one published in 1933. It’s about a young French man, Joseph Timar, who goes to Gabon to take a position with a French company operating there. He finds himself in a world where there are three… [Read More]
Paying for College: College and Credentialism
One of the many conundrums in labor economics is whether a college graduate has attained skills or acquired a credential. A diploma is just a piece of paper, albeit a pretty one; it is given only after a lot of hard work. But what does it mean? This is what we know: the paper may… [Read More]
