Category Frances Woolley
Flea Market Economics
At a flea market in Perth, Ontario (Slogan: "We buy junk and sell antiques"), I spotted a pair of used phones. The two are identical in all respects except colour and price. Why should a blue phone have an asking price $70 higher than a yellow phone? It's a simple matter of supply and demand.
The Legend of the Auto Quota: Separating fact from fiction
For people who purport to be skeptical of normative analysis, economists are awfully fond of morality tales. One of our favourites is The Legend of the Auto Quota. Once upon a time, the US imposed a quota on imports of Japanese automobiles. Japanese automakers responded by upgrading; packing every car they sold full of features. […]
Oprah Winfrey, victim of racism – or marketing?
Oprah, one of the richest women in the world, was in Zurich, Switzerland, when an assistant at an upscale handbag shop told her the purse she was looking at (worth over $35,000) was “too expensive” for her. [Globe and Mail] Winfrey – and just about every single media outlet in North America – interpreted the incident as […]
Love, paternalism, selfishness – and money.
Smokers smoke. Gamblers gamble. Drinkers drink. Why should anyone else care? Some non-economists believe that economics assumes selfishness. Each person is only concerned about themselves, and their material consumption. Selfishness can be represented formally like this: u=u(x) (1) A person's "utility", their well-being or happiness, is a function, u, of their consumption of goods and […]
New taxes are usually inefficient or unpopular – and that’s a good thing.
My last post contained a diagram suggesting that no tax is both popular and efficient. On twitter, Matt Cowgill suggested the diagram was wrong. Taxes on resource rents are both popular and efficient. Michael Kushnir suggested carbon taxes as another possibility. If Cowgill and Kushnir are right, then the set of efficient taxes interesects the set of popular taxes:
Feminist triumph or impending disaster?
Right now almost 90 percent of Canadians live in provinces or territories with female premiers. This is a sure indication that Canada's provincial governments are in for a rough ride. It's sometimes called the glass cliff: men are chosen to lead in prosperous times; women are selected to be leaders in times of crisis. Iceland […]
Smoking and health care expenditures
In an old post, Chris Auld attacked the "zombie argument" that healthy lifestyles substantially decrease demand on the health care system. As he put it: All people — and I do not mean to shock anyone — die some time, even including people who live very healthy lifestyles. Preventing someone from dying of a smoking-related illness only means […]
Satisfaction
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides. […]
Do use Wikipedia as a reference
I wish professors would stop saying to students "Do not use Wikipedia as a reference." What the professor means is "Do not read Wikipedia. Do not take ideas from Wikipedia. Instead, consult scholarly journals, books, government documents, and other serious, credible, high quality sources." What students hear is "Don't put Wikipedia down in the list of references […]
The invisible mentor
I had a mentor once. Any time my name was put forward for a time consuming yet impotent committee he would say, "Frances has a lot of other commitments right now, let's ask so and so." I didn't know he was doing this until later; I just noticed that my more tiresome committee duties miraculously […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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