Want a 912% return in one year?

Sound too good to be true? Well, according to the Motley Fool website (“Best market“), Zimbabwe’s stock exchange returned 912% in 2006. The Mises Institute states that between January and the beginning of April 2007, the Zimbabwe stock exchange returned 595%, and looks to continue to be the top stock index in 2007 as well.…

2 for 1 special on lettuce, 30% off pasta …and free ciprofoxacin?

On Monday, August 1st, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that Publix supermarket chain will be giving out free prescription drugs (“Publix to offer…antibiotics for free“).   The 7 drugs which will be freely available to customers include: amoxicillin, cephalexin, penicillin VK, erythromycin, ampicillin, sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim, and ciprofoxacin. The reasons Publix is doing this are: 1) to attract…

Violence: A Vicious Cycle

The August 1st edition of JAMA has an interesting article which examines how exposure to war crimes affects individuals view about peaceful negotiations (“…War Crimes…“). The study takes place in the Acholi, Lango, and Teso subregions in northern Uganda. Since the late 1980s, many people in this area of Uganda experienced the bitter fighting between…

The Fox in the Henhouse

“We want the protection the government provides, and we want freedom. Put those together, and what we really want is for our government, and the whole public sector, from firefighters to voluntary organizations, to be both responsible and responsive.” I recently finished reading the book The Fox in the Henhouse: How Privatization Threatens Democracy by…

The difference between intellectuals and politicians

The N.Y. Times Sunday Magazine has a very interesting article (“Getting Iraq wrong“) which talks about how academics and politicians make decisions. “The philosopher Isaiah Berlin once said that the trouble with academics and commentators is that they care more about whether ideas are interesting than whether they are true. Politicians live by ideas just…

Is your doctor licensed?

If you are living in Puerto Rico, you may have reason to worry. The BBC reports (“PR seizes fake docs“) that “arrest warrants were issued for at least 88 doctors whom officials allege gained their credentials through fraud or bribery…The arrests are linked to allegations that members of Puerto Rico’s medical licensing board took bribes…

Health Club Membership: A luxury good

There remains little doubt that health club membership is a luxury good.  More evidence to support this comes from China.  NPR’s Marketplace reports (“…Sport towards China“): “…the average Chinese citizen now has much more disposable income than he or she ever had before. And a big thing they’re doing with that income . . .…

Developments in Non-Expected Utility Theory

This week we have been looking at Expected Utility Theory (EUT) and its alternatives. Many people have challenged the empirical and theoretical basis for EUT. For instance, Matthew Rabin (Econometrica 2000) claims that EUT has implausible implications. For instance, if an individual would prefer $0 to playing a lottery with a 50% chance of losing…