Can't they just move it?
And Economic History is the BEST Field of Economics
It’s usually not a good thing when the economy is the center of the news. Case in point: a ship blocking the Suez Canal. But at least we got some good memes out of it! Fortunately, it looks like the ship is being cleared out.
My biggest lesson from this past week is how fragile international trade is to tiny shocks. The Suez Canal is a clear and recent example. But over the last four years we saw that the Trump administration could alter trade patterns with the stroke of a pen. And of course last year we saw COVID disrupt supply chains. It’s impossible to move away from global supply chains, but it seems like we should have a more robust system to something so important to the global economy.
Economic History is the BEST
The Best Field of Economics series is back! I did the tier list, behavioral economics, and development economics. Now we have Economic History! Run over to YouTube and see how I came to love economic history, how economic history changed the world, and why economic history provides so much opportunity for you.
I also recommend some books. Here are links (affiliate) if you’re interested:
Charter City?
In 2009. Paul Romer proposed how we could accelerate development in poor countries: charter cities. A crude way to think about charter cities is carving out a section of a poor country and inserting a colony. The city gets its laws and institutions from another country. Think of Hong Kong, which was a Chinese city run by the UK. Romer tried to get a charter city running, but, as you can imagine, it is hard to convince a country to give up a city to another country.
Well, it looks like a charter city is coming to Honduras. Right now the charter city will be remote-only, but eventually it will have residents. I’m excited to track it, and even hope to visit it for a video!
Lumber Supply Shock
We live in a neighborhood where people are building houses like crazy. But the builds have been delayed because of a shortage of materials. One of the hardest things to come by has been lumber. Here’s my favorite quote
By the time they have saved up enough money and are ready to begin construction to finish their basements, the price will have changed. A lot of the time, McArthur [the builder] said he ends up splitting the increased cost with his customers.
This is a classic result about supply and demand! This is about the incidence of price increases. An increase in price doesn’t get absorbed by just one party, it’s determined by the elasticities of supply and demand.
YouTube Education
This was a great week for education videos on YouTube. Here are some of my favorites related to economics:
Easter Weekend
I know that not all of my readers celebrate Easter. But it is an important holiday in my faith, so I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention it. This weekend our family will be joining in worship through an online conference. If you’re interested, you can watch this video for a short invitation.