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1500 questions
24
votes
5 answers
Why is fuel more expensive on the high way in Europe?
In Europe it's usual, that fuel prices are 10-20% higher on the highway, than in the city. This is not only my personal observation, but also mentioned on travel sites (eg here and here). I don't have much expertise in economics, but as I understand…
Torin42
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23
votes
4 answers
What are Giffen Goods?
What exactly are Giffen goods and are they of purely theoretical interest or has there been empirical evidence of their existence?
Steve S
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22
votes
5 answers
How do Marxist economists solve the Diamond-Water Paradox?
For class surveying different economic systems, I read a book on Marxism and its core beliefs. As I read, I came to learn that the Marxist view of economics depends heavily on the Labor Theory of Value since Marx believed that the value of a good…
Mathematician
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22
votes
4 answers
Why would a company sabotage its product's ability to be used for a particular purpose?
I saw in the news recently that NVIDIA has placed limits on the hash rate for mining Ethereum cryptocurrency. This is purportedly to get more GPUs into the hands of gamers instead of crypto miners.
What is the advantage to NVIDIA to doing this? …
Zaz
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22
votes
3 answers
Why is collective bargaining by a group of employees not the same thing as price-fixing?
Employees sell their labor for wages. If a critical mass of employees get together and demand higher wages, how is this not the same thing as a critical mass of merchants illegally fixing the price of some commodity?
Can't a strong union be…
Deane
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22
votes
6 answers
Who exactly foots the bill if Greece defaults
Apologies if the topic is not appropriate (economics newbie here) but I am curious as to who exactly would foot the bill if Greece defaults on the ~300 billion dollars it owes. It looks like most of the money is owed to EU, IMF and ECB but what does…
stali
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22
votes
4 answers
Why is bartering uncommon in modern countries?
Recently, I witnessed two acquaintances of mine engaging in bartering, where one traded his services for the services of the other. Both services had about the same value. By trading them directly, they didn't pay VAT or tax on income, as no money…
Bart
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22
votes
4 answers
Has the Nash Equilibrium led to any significant economic discoveries?
The Nash Equilibrium provided a new look at certain economic problems and won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1994. Since its creation, the Nash Equilibrium has been applied to "international relations" specifically for war and…
Mathematician
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21
votes
1 answer
What do supply-demand curves really look like?
In my basic high school economics course, we've always used supply-demand curves that are lines to simplify calculations. In real markets for real goods, what do the supply and demand curves look like? From a mathematical perspective, what would be…
eepperly16
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21
votes
2 answers
Does diversity lead to more productivity?
Is it true that "Companies with diverse workforces outperform those with homogenous teams"? That's what TrendsWatching says anyway. And is it "diverse workforce" or "workforce comprising people from a variety of backgrounds"? I don't immediately see…
Sergey Zolotarev
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21
votes
7 answers
Why do low-income earners tend to spend more?
I am reading an article in the Economist.
It is discussing the China's unbalanced economy especially the lower household consumption proportion in GDP than the global average. The writer thinks the poor social safety net in China plays a part in…
Pedant
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21
votes
5 answers
Can inflation occur in a positive-sum game currency system such as the Stack Exchange reputation system?
As most active users of this site know, the way the reputation system works is that everyone starts out with 1 reputation and a user can earn more reputation by asking good questions and writing exceptional answers (as well as other methods), and a…
Jodast
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21
votes
3 answers
In what sense are "new-Keynesian" models "new" and in what sense are they "Keynesian"?
Hopefully, the title of this question is quite descriptive. Whilst I have a broad understanding of the research agenda of macroeconomics, I don't have a very good picture of how it is divided into various schools and traditions. Is there a way to…
Ubiquitous
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21
votes
7 answers
Why do different countries have different currency?
Why do different countries have different currency?
I have this question because I want to know why to divide it? If it's not divided then we can easily use the money anywhere and we won't need to use currency exchange.
user14198
20
votes
6 answers
Experiments contradicting the expected utility model
This is a question I asked on the cognitive science beta which never got any answer there. I do not know what the policy should be for question migration/reposting (maybe worth discussing in the meta?), but I hoped it might get more answers (i.e. at…
Martin Van der Linden
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