All tagged economics

Economic Illiteracy: Repercussions and Remedies

Economic Illiteracy: Repercussions and Remedies

William Fort
Economics, Personal Finance

Leading up to the 2024 election, the state of the economy under President Biden was a predominant concern among prospective voters. Residual inflation from the COVID-19 pandemic’s wrath on global markets spiked in 2022, with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) reaching a peak value of 9.1%. Despite the CPI dropping to 2.7% by November 2024, increases in the cost of living remained at the forefront of voters’ minds (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, 2025). Americans felt that routine trips to the doctor, the gas pump, or the grocery store were slowly eroding their paycheck, and in turn, affecting their livelihood. Frustration and desperation led to deductive reasoning. The U.S. economy thrived during Donald Trump’s first term but slumped under the Biden administration; this correlation did not go unnoticed. In September 2024, Pew Research Center released poll data detailing that registered voters trusted Donald Trump to make sound economic policy decisions more than Kamala Harris by a margin of 10%.

The Behavioral Economics of Substance Abuse

The Behavioral Economics of Substance Abuse

Amira Zidan
Economics

To understand the reasoning behind substance abuse, we have to look at it from economic and psychological aspects, which brings us to the behavioral economic theory of substance abuse. It represents the reinforcers and contingencies, whether endogenous, as a subjective response to drugs, stress or arousal, or exogenous, which are the environmental factors such as low availability of alternatives, low prices of substances, social contexts that promote substance use, as well as life events that cause stress or dysphoria, that push the individual toward making cost-benefit decisions (Murphy & Dennhardt, 2016). 

Land Reform in Venezuela -- Developmental Economics Analysis on Property Rights, Part A

Land Reform in Venezuela -- Developmental Economics Analysis on Property Rights, Part A

Vincent Z. Yu
Economics

In Venezuela, the discovery of oil was an excitement for the fast and easy track it paved to wealth. Venezuela’s agricultural industry, on the other hand, was largely neglected due to over-emphasis on the oil industry. Such a tilted policy design deepened the tremendous gap between rural and urban areas, with only 12% of its population living in the rural area who produces food insufficient for the whole nation (Wilpert, 2007). Nevertheless, the greater demand for food did not fuel the welfare of the most fundamental supplier group – the farmers. Instead, it filled up the pocket of the elite class, the latifundista, as they had overwhelming property control over the key resources. Misallocation of property rights not only hinders the production power of the traditional farming class, it also causes a vicious cycle where incentives for relevant activities are nowhere to be found.