An International Battle Over One Of The Most Boring Things In Finance
This week saw the end of a years-long, international, multi-billion-dollar battle over one of the most boring things in finance: savings accounts.At the center of the battle was Iceland, a tiny country...
View Article'Give Me The Money Or I'll Shoot The Trees'
Ecuador's Yasuni National Park is one of the most diverse ecosystems on Earth. But there's a complication: The park sits on top of the equivalent of millions of barrels of oil.This creates a...
View ArticleThree Ways To Totally Transform U.S. Immigration Policy
With immigration policy in the news again, I asked three economists, "Dream big: If you could create any immigration policy for the U.S., what would it be?" Here's what they said.1. The Best And The...
View ArticleWhen A Famous Hospital Didn't Want An Expensive New Drug
Last year, a new drug called Zaltrap was approved as a kind of last-chance therapy for patients with colorectal cancer. Studies suggested Zaltrap worked almost exactly as well as an existing drug...
View ArticleLady Gaga Writing A New Song Is Like A Factory Investing In A New Machine
I spoke yesterday with Dan Sichel, a Wellesley economist and a Lady Gaga fan. Both of these facts are relevant for this story.The U.S. government is about to tweak the way it measures the economy, and...
View ArticleWho Hides Money Outside The Country?
Over the past decade, some 39,000 people have come forward voluntarily to tell the IRS about offshore money they haven't been paying taxes on. This group provides a small window into the world of...
View ArticleA Surprising Barrier To Clean Water: Human Nature
In many parts of the developing world, drinking a glass of water can be deadly — especially for young children, who can die of diarrheal diseases contracted from dirty water.So getting clean water to...
View ArticleEconomists Have A One-Page Solution To Climate Change
Climate change seems like this complicated problem with a million pieces. But Henry Jacoby, an economist at MIT's business school, says there's really just one thing you need to do to solve the...
View ArticleWhy Doesn't Everybody Buy Cheap, Generic Headache Medicine?
Why does anyone buy Bayer aspirin — or Tylenol, or Advil — when, almost always, there's a bottle of cheaper generic pills, with the same active ingredient, sitting right next to the brand-name...
View ArticleThe Charity That Just Gives Money To Poor People
For more of our reporting on this story, please see our recent column in the New York Times Magazine, and the latest episode of This American Life.There's a charity called GiveDirectly that just gives...
View ArticleCash, Cows And The Rise Of Nerd Philanthropy
For more of our reporting on this story, please see our recent column in the New York Times Magazine, and the latest episode of This American Life.This morning, we reported on a charity called...
View ArticleEcuador To World: Pay Up To Save The Rainforest. World To Ecuador: Meh.
The government of Ecuador has abandoned a plan that would have kept part of the Amazonian rainforest off limits to oil drilling. The initiative was an unusual one: Ecuador was promising to keep the oil...
View ArticleOne Key Thing No One Knows About Obamacare
Tuesday is a big day for Obamacare. The online marketplaces where people can shop for health insurance are supposed to open for business.No one really knows who is going to sign up — not the Obama...
View ArticleWhat A U.S. Default Would Mean For Pensions, China And Social Security
What would happen if Congress doesn't raise the debt ceiling and the U.S. defaults on its debt later this month? The broad economic implications are unpredictable, but a default could cause huge...
View ArticleI Lent $999.78 To The Federal Government*
Earlier this week, I bought a Treasury bill.Everybody calls Treasury bills T-bills, and they work like this: The government promises to pay holders of T-bills a specific amount on a specific day in the...
View ArticleWhat Happens When You Just Give Money To Poor People?
For more of our reporting on this story, please see our work in The New York Times Magazine and on This American Life.A couple of months ago, we reported on a charity called GiveDirectl
View ArticleWhat's A Bubble?
Robert Shiller was surprised when he got the call telling him he'd won the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics — surprised that he'd won (of course), but also surprised that he was sharing the award with...
View ArticleA Bitcoin Insider On Crime, Congress And Satoshi Nakamoto
For more on what Bitcoin is and how it works, see our story "What Is Bitcoin?"Gavin Andresen is chief scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation. I first talked with him about Bitcoin, the virtual currency,...
View ArticleWe Found This 20-Year-Old T-Shirt In Kenya. The Internet Found The Original...
We recently published a story about how used clothes that get donated in the U.S. often wind up for sale in markets in Africa.
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