The library
414 articles across Financial Literacy and Economic Intelligence — shuffled fresh each visit.
Environmental Economics: Pricing the Planet and the Policy Math Behind Climate Action
Carbon is the textbook negative externality. The fix is a price — a carbon tax or cap-and-trade — set against the EPA's $190-per-ton social cost of carbon.
- Pollution is a negative externality: the polluter doesn't pay the full cost their emissions impose on everyone else, so the market produces too much of it
- The EPA estimates the social cost of carbon at about $190 per ton of CO2 (2020, 2 percent discount rate) — the dollar damage each ton imposes on society over time
- A carbon tax sets the price and lets the quantity of emissions adjust; cap-and-trade sets the quantity and lets the market discover the price
Healthcare as a Market: Why the Economics of Medicine Break Every Standard Model
U.S. health spending hit $5.3 trillion in 2024. Three features break the standard market: asymmetric information, third-party payment, and inelastic demand.
Thinking Like an Economist: The Mental Frameworks That Stay With You
You'll forget the equations. What stays is five tools — opportunity cost, marginal thinking, incentives, trade-offs, equilibrium — that improve every decision.
Housing Markets: What Happens When Supply Can't Keep Up With Where People Want to Live
Home prices have outrun incomes for years. The reason is inelastic supply: housing takes years to build, and zoning caps it where demand is highest.
Zoning: Land Use Regulation and Its Economic Consequences
Zoning is a government regulation that specifies what types of land use are permitted in specific geographic areas.
Platform Economics: The Two-Sided Markets That Reshape Industries
Platform economics analyzes two-sided (or multi-sided) markets where a platform intermediary connects two distinct user groups that each benefit from the…
Carbon Tax: Pricing Greenhouse Gas Emissions Directly
A carbon tax is a per-unit charge on greenhouse gas emissions, designed to make the private cost of fossil fuel use reflect its social cost.
Platform Economics: Two-Sided Markets, Network Effects, and Why Winner-Takes-Most
Platforms connect two groups and grow more valuable as each grows. Network effects explain why these markets tip toward one giant — and draw antitrust fights.
Switching Costs: The Friction That Keeps Customers Locked In
Switching costs are the costs a buyer incurs when changing from one supplier or product to another.
The Network Effect: Why Some Products Become More Valuable as They Grow
Network effects occur when a product's value increases as more people use it. They are the primary driver of winner-take-all market dynamics in technology,…
Cap-and-Trade: Using Markets to Cut Pollution Efficiently
Cap-and-trade sets a total limit on emissions, distributes tradeable permits up to that cap, and lets firms buy and sell permits based on their individual…