My FREE Economics Publication

And The Funniest Reviews

In case you missed it, last week I announced that I have a FREE economics publication available for download.

The Journal of Economic History published my dissertation and opened it to anyone who wants to download it. You can get it here.

Why should you download it? Primarily, because it’s good! But if you’re interested in what economic research looks like, this is a great example. It’s accessible to undergraduates, and it will give you an idea of what is expected from graduate students.

But another reason to download it is for the meme! I’m trying to make it the most-read article on that journal. So download it, then tweet about it! Or post in on reddit! Or make a TikTok about it!

Economic Books Reviews

Last week, I asked for your help finding one-star book reviews for popular economics books. You delivered! This week’s video was one of my favorites, and it would not have been possible without your help.

The reviews you found were hilarious, and I had a fantastic time trying to guess which book they belonged to. Highly recommend the video. Go over to YouTube and watch.

Any suggestions on the next game I should do? It could be one-star reviews of another set of books, or another challenge entirely!

FedVision

Believe it or not, we are about to get what everyone has always wanted: a prime-time TV drama based on the Federal Reserve! Here’s the description provided by Deadline:

All American showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll is writing and exec producing The Fed, which follows both the personal and career drama surrounding a group of young finance hopefuls as they begin an elite fellowship with the Federal Reserve, the nation’s most powerful financial institution. These young financial geniuses are destined for greatness — provided they don’t screw it all up with secrets, lies, sex, and politics…It is a passion project for Okoro Carroll, who worked as an analyst for the federal reserve before she broke into television

I’m having a hard time even imagining what an episode will be about. Hopefully it’s just a lot of talk about Stata and visiting scholar seminars.

Pro tip: if you want to know about what’s inside the Federal Reserve, just watch my video!

Pfizer Profits

At the beginning of the week, there was an attempt to turn Pfizer into a national scandal. Companies began reporting their 2021 revenues, and Pfizer in the first quarter of the year made a total of $14 billion. Of course, a good chunk of this revenue came from its world-changing vaccine. Indeed, things are looking so good Pfizer now forecasts that its total revenue for the year will be $70 billion.

Keep in mind, these figures are just for total revenue. These are not profits.

So obviously people were frustrated that a company was “profiting from the pandemic.” But these numbers are really hard to understand without context.

What can give us a sense of the scale here? Well, this last week Apple reported that its earning for the same quarter were $89.6 billion. Just to be clear, we’re upset that Pfizer is earning money from a vaccine that is restoring the global economy when it is making less in one year what Apple makes in one quarter selling overpriced and overhyped consumer electronics.

It makes me wonder what innovations we might see if R&D in medicine was more profitable than designing a $600 pair of headphones.

What the world could have been

I was blown away to see this video of Afghanistan in the 1970s. When compared to Afghanistan today, this really highlights the atrocities of conflict.