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1500 questions
5
votes
2 answers
What books to read to learn about geography and how it affects economic development?
I saw youtube videos like how geography doomed Africa and heard how Japan's prosperity is an anomaly due to its isolation and they got me interested.
Pulse Reborn
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5
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1 answer
Has it truly been established that the restaurant industry operates on thin margins?
For as long as I can remember I've constantly seen the truism that restaurants operate on "razor sharp margins" repeated endlessly by the media, the restaurant industry, and the average joe. This seems to be something that people take for granted,…
Ciudadano
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5
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1 answer
What does it mean by saying someone is "effectively risk averse/loving"?
Recently I am reading a paper by Ortner & Chassang (2018) on corruption control. It is a nice paper to read, and the idea is kinda cool.
The game is as follows. There are 3 players, a principle, a monitor, and an agent. The agent can choose to…
Lin Jing
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5
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1 answer
What does it mean if a economic model is internally consistent?
What does it mean if a economic model is internally consistent? What happens if it is not? Is it not closed anymore? Can it still be solved? Does it still have an equilibrium?
Beck Batucada
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5
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3 answers
What is the difference between identification, calibration and estimation?
In fitting theoretical models to data, what is the difference between identification, calibration and estimation?
Beck Batucada
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5
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0 answers
Which classical liberal economists promoted the privacy and secrecy of businesses?
Quinn Slobodian (2018) writes:
the idea of businessmen opening their account books beyond the firm represented a revision of the classical liberal vision. The privacy of the businessman was no longer sacred.
(This quote is in the context of Hayek…
user16353
5
votes
4 answers
Python vs R (vs Stata): the old battle revisited
I am an avid Python user. I know Stata but I'm not a pro. I don't know R. I do econometrics (mostly time series, but also cross-section and panel), and statistics, and Python seems quite sufficient in meeting my needs.
I know that economists (at…
Jay
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5
votes
1 answer
Deriving a demand curve from a Cobb-Douglas utility
Probably a daft question but I derived an equation for a demand curve from a general Cobb-Douglas utility function $$U(x,y)=\beta x^{\alpha}y^{1-\alpha}$$ given a budget constraint $$M=xP_x+yP_y$$ and found that the quantity of $x$ demanded would be…
Jonathan Andrews
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5
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1 answer
Why are my 2SLS estimates much larger than my OLS estimates?
When performing IV regression, it is often taken as a sign of unbiasedness if the IV estimates are similar to the OLS estimates of the same model. My question is: If the estimates are very different, what possible explanations are there for the…
Tómas Bjarnason
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5
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1 answer
Is the consumer surplus on a Giffen/Veblen good negative?
When drawing the demand and supply curves on a quantity/product space for an upwards sloping demand, assuming the two curves intersect, I noticed that the traditional consumer surplus region lies below the equilibrium price, and possibly even under…
tox123
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5
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3 answers
Can quantative easing be summarized as "The state prints cash to pay its debt to private sector"?
I find that most sources describe quantitative easing in an overly complicated way that obscures what it basically means.
As far as I understand a central bank is a public entity owned by a state, so I don't see much point in distinguishing a state…
jam
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5
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1 answer
Is there a reference that plots different countries' debt-to-GDP ratios over (long) times?
This old blog post has an interesting plot that demonstrates that the U.K.'s current debt-to-GDP ratio is significantly below its very-long-term (180-year) average.
Is there a plot anywhere that compares the historical debt-to-GDP ratio over long…
tparker
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5
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2 answers
Why are we taking the logarithm for risk-averse decision-makers?
I'm a mathematics student learning a bit of Game theory. Many examples are given within a very economic setting and up to know I could follow most of it because they were very basic and I learnt some basic economics in high school.
Now I've come…
Huy
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5
votes
1 answer
Fantasy football
I have an idea for a fantasy football experiment looking at three different areas of the draft. These three areas are the position of each pick and how often and what value are trades.
I have dug through the literature and have only found a…
user4318524
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5
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2 answers
One-shot deviation principle for infinite repeated games and dynamic programming
In a context that future return is discounted by a constant parameter, one-shot deviation principle holds for both repeated games and dynamic programming.
Because, in repeated games, a one-shot deviation refers to one history, so on equilibrium…
Metta World Peace
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