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Author Archives: Felix
Explaining the Absence of Grocery Stores in Poor Neighborhoods
Nathan Berg, of the Center for Urban Economics, has noticed that there are many fewer grocery stores in poor urban neighborhoods than economic theory would suggest. The public-health implications of eating mainly processed food are pretty nasty, to say nothing … Continue reading
Posted in economics
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Virtual Deflation
Can you think of an economy where the money supply is increasing but consumer prices are falling dramatically? Eyjólfur Guðmundsson can: it’s called EVE Online. Over the course of the third quarter of 2007 – which is equivalent to about … Continue reading
Posted in economics
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Pointless Shareholder Activism, Pardus Edition
The problem with airline mergers is not that people think they’re a bad idea. Not at all: pretty much every airline-industry executive in America thinks that consolidation in the industry is inevitable and a great idea in theory. But the … Continue reading
Posted in hedge funds
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The Resurgence of Sculpture
With the sale last night of his "Hanging Heart (Magenta/Gold)" for $23.6 million, Jeff Koons is now the priciest living artist at auction. Now it’s entirely possible that someone will decide to go the auction-house route rather than the private-dealer … Continue reading
Posted in art
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UBS: Waiting for the CDO Shoe to Drop
UBS had over $24 billion in gross CDO exposure at the end of October – much more than any other bank bar Citi. Yet its writedowns to date amount to just $3.1 billion, or 13% of that exposure. By contrast, … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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The Limitations of TradeSports
Last week, I wrote about the TradeSports contract on whether Alex Rodriguez would stay at the Yankees. It might be "a screaming buy," I said, but warned that it was very illiquid. So what has happened to the contract now … Continue reading
Posted in prediction markets
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The Goldman Sachs Special Sauce
What’s the difference between Goldman Sachs and all the other investment banks? You know, aside from that whole profitability thing. The answer seems to be that where other banks have org charts, Goldman has managers. It’s unthinkable that Goldman would … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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Extra Credit, Thursday Edition
Why homeownership may be bad for America The Real Cost of Smoking: "Every pack of cigarettes that an adult male smokes knocks off $222 from the value of that man’s life." Why I Need CNBC: Ken Houghton discovers that CNBC … Continue reading
Posted in remainders
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The Best Subprime Reporting and Analysis, Cont.
Tanta’s on fire today. First came this, in re a court case in Ohio, where she suspected that Deutsche Bank had gotten sloppy with some paperwork: When Wall Street analysts stand up and demand that companies beef up back rooms, … Continue reading
Posted in housing
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Why Advertisers Won’t Desert a Free WSJ.com
In the wake of the latest news about WSJ.com going free, the old arguments against such a move have been emerging from people who think they’re smarter than Rupert Murdoch. They’re not. The main argument is summed up by Barry … Continue reading
Posted in Media, publishing
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Labor vs Capital in Baseball
Is A-Rod seeking an "insane" amount of money? Not necessarily: In 2001, the first year of the first Rodriguez mega-contract, major-league players were getting 56% of their sport’s $3.5 billion in revenues. Yet this year, Jeff Passan notes on Yahoo … Continue reading
Posted in sports
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The John Thain FAQ
Many questions accompany John Thain’s appointment as CEO of Merrill Lynch. Here are just some of them: Will Thain be chairman, too? Almost certainly, yes. Whither BlackRock’s Larry Fink, now he’s been passed over for the job as Merrill CEO? … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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Auto Industry Chart of the Day
If the Harvard faculty is remotely representative of anything, then Detroit is doomed. Interestingly, Greg Mankiw’s BMW 330xi gets about 17 MPG, in the city, and emits 9.2 tons of greenhouse-gas emissions per year. Does he not believe that his … Continue reading
Posted in climate change
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Unsecured Personal Debt: The Next Shoe to Drop?
HSBC has been one of the biggest subprime lenders in the US ever since it bought Household International for $15.5 billion in 2003. It was one of the first major banks to take big subprime-related losses, too, and it doesn’t … Continue reading
Posted in bonds and loans
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The Fed Gets Its Inflation Target
In the Fed’s latest move towards greater transparency, we will now see three-year forecasts for both core and headline inflation four times a year. Greg Ip notes that this is an inflation target in all but name: The projection for … Continue reading
Posted in fiscal and monetary policy
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Retail Quote of the Day
Joe Wiesenthal reads the WSJ: How about this quote from a retail industry trade group VP: "We don’t anticipate a lot of unplanned markdowns."
Posted in consumption
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Richard Prince Datapoint of the Day
October 16, London: At Christie’s, the heat was still on for the fashionable Canadian conceptual artist Richard Prince, whose painting Wayward Nurse, bought originally in 2005 from his New York gallery for $75,000, sold for £1 million ($2.1 million). November … Continue reading
Posted in art
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Why Newspapers Should Ignore Stock-Market Volatility
I get very irritated when newspapers splash one-day stock-market movements all over their front page for no good reason. Every time the Dow drops 300 points or more, it seems, there’s some kind of rule saying that big panicky headlines … Continue reading
Extra Credit, Wednesday Edition
Crooked Timber’s Dani Rodrik seminar. Featuring Thoma, Quiggin, Farrell, Warsh, Knight, Przeworski, Drezner, Davies, and a response from Rodrik. Truly the econoblogosphere is becoming the best economics education money can’t buy. Plus ça change: Amsterdam’s 17th-Century stock market. Kevin Rose … Continue reading
Posted in remainders
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Wall Street: Still Insanely Profitable
Bloomberg is running a story headlined "A $45 Billion Writedown Won’t Stop Wall Street Profit", saying that Wall Street is poised to have its second-most-profitable year on record, despite those $45 billion in writedowns: Amid the gloom, analysts estimate New … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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The Carbon Tax Debate: Why a Cap-and-Trade System is Better
I spent more three hours this morning at a debate hosted by the New York City Bar Association which was narrowly focused on a single issue: whether the US government should implement a carbon tax or whether it should go … Continue reading
Posted in climate change
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Blackstone vs Goldman, Subprime Edition
November 12: Blackstone President and Chief Operating Officer Hamilton James said on Monday Blackstone is starting to "go long" the subprime market, after a successful bet against the sector that played out over the last 18 months. November 13: Goldman … Continue reading
Murdoch’s WSJ.com Ambitions
Does Rupert Murdoch think he can double or even treble the number of visitors to WSJ.com if when he makes the site free? Don’t be silly. He’s much more ambitious than that: Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of the News Corporation, … Continue reading
Posted in Media, publishing
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The Economics of Concert Performances
Last night I went to a truly magnificent show at Carnegie Hall: Sir Simon Rattle conducting the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela in Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony. My front-row seats were $44 each. This evening, Sir Simon returns, conducting the … Continue reading
Posted in art
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The Economics of Broken Deadlines
Why were the second and third Matrix films shot at the same time? Why are TV series shot all at once? Simple: economies of scale. You can shoot all your scenes at a given location at the same time, rather … Continue reading
Posted in Media
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