Economy
Discover facts about economy. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Economy
Tesco tracked workers' bathroom breaks
At Tesco warehouses, an armband logged how long workers took to load goods and even tracked bathroom breaks. Take longer than the algorithm’s limit, and the…
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Conglomerates consolidate endless networks into single apps
Streaming promised viewers separate choices, but companies can buy rival networks and tuck their back catalogs behind one monthly subscription. The bundle…
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Some scratch cards revealed clues before they were scratched
Statistician Mohan Srivastava found patterns in the numbers already visible on certain lottery games. Those patterns helped distinguish likely winners from…
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India canceled most of its cash value overnight
In November 2016, India announced that existing 500- and 1,000-rupee notes would cease to be legal tender. They represented roughly 86% of currency in…
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The Pentagon has failed every audit
Auditors couldn’t account for vast portions of the Pentagon’s sprawling finances. The department’s books were so difficult to trace that audits repeatedly…
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National defense protects everyone whether they pay or not
A country cannot neatly defend only the people who paid their share. That makes defense a difficult service to sell person by person: even nonpayers can be…
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Cheap talk can still tell you something useful
In game theory, cheap talk is communication that doesn't directly bind the speaker or change payoffs. It can nevertheless carry information when the…
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Simplest economic explanations are generally accurate
Occam’s razor says to prefer the explanation that needs fewer assumptions. That makes it a useful starting point, not a guarantee that the simplest…
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How thieves bypassed ten layers of vault security
The thieves had time to open more than 100 safety-deposit boxes over a weekend without setting off an alarm. They even left half-eaten sandwiches behind; the…
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Public goods rely on forcing citizens to pay
If a service helps everyone whether they pay or not, each person has a reason to hope someone else covers the bill. That can leave the service short of money,…
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Digital cameras absolutely obliterated the entire film sector
Digital cameras let people take pictures without buying film or paying to have each roll developed and printed. That cut into the businesses built around both…
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Measuring wealth inequality requires heavy mathematics
Imagine all a country's wealth lined up between two extremes: shared perfectly by everyone at 0, or held by one person at 1. The Gini coefficient places the…
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A Swiss banknote prints the same serial number in two different fonts
The Swiss National Bank lists the repeated number among the features people can inspect. Other checks involve light, texture and ultraviolet effects. The note…
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You own the mailbox. You don't control what goes inside
In the United States, a home mailbox is reserved for postage-paid mail handled through USPS. A business cannot simply drop its flyers inside, even with the…
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Why your commute is unpaid work
The employer chooses where the job happens, but workers spend their own time and money getting there. That trip is part of what it costs them to take the job,…
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The French Revolution did not make wealth stay equal
Historical estimates show that wealth remained highly concentrated after 1789 and became even more concentrated through much of the nineteenth century.…
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Spam became a holiday gift in South Korea
Canned meat associated with US military supplies gained a place in Korean food culture and later appeared in elaborate holiday gift boxes. Shelf life,…
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The corporate nesting dolls hiding who owns a company
One shell company can own another, registered in a different jurisdiction. Add enough corporate layers and it gets much harder to see who ultimately controls…
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Notary publics charge to simply witness you signing
The stamp comes after three checks: your ID, your signature, and the match between them. The notary is charging to witness that match.
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On Yap, money can be too heavy to move
A stone disk could sink, yet its owner didn't lose the money. On Yap, the community's agreement about who owned each stone mattered more than who could…
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Minimum-wage systems started with selected vulnerable workers
New Zealand introduced an early system in 1894, followed by Victoria in 1896. These interventions initially covered limited groups or trades rather than…
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A rock's chemistry can reveal that it came from Mars
Some meteorites contain trapped gases matching the Martian atmosphere measured by spacecraft. That provides a link far stronger than a stone merely looking…
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Why public bathrooms illustrate the tragedy of the commons
When a bathroom belongs to everyone, each visitor can treat cleaning as somebody else’s job. The mess accumulates because the person who makes it leaves…
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Why smuggled phones cost thousands in prison
A burner phone worth about $20 outside prison can sell for thousands inside because the buyer isn’t paying for the handset. They’re paying for illicit…
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