Category: Economics

In 2010, the UK created its Behavioral Insights Team  (Links to an external site.)and the Danes formed the Danish iNudgeyou (Links to an external site.) unit. The European Nudging Network (TEN) (Links to an external site.) was launched in June 2014. Not to be left too far behind, on September 15, 2015, President Obama, through executive order, established the White House (WH) Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (Links to an external site.) (SBST) as a part of the pre-existing White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). The OSTP was established by law in 1976.

Then everything changed. One of President Trump’s initial actions on January 20, 2017, was to disband the OSTP leadership and effectively discontinue this portion of federal government science and technology support. The WH SBST and its associated website remain frozen awaiting to see if President Biden revives it. The applied behavioral sciences program, however, still continues in Europe and in most Social and Behavioral Sciences Divisions within universities across the US and Europe. To get an idea of where this is headed, the most recent nudging ideas being discussed by the Global Nudging Community can be found pinned on the home page’s geographical map of TEN’s website, (Links to an external site.)

One example of nudging is to apply our understanding of Behavioral Economics to entice people to make rational decisions when they otherwise might not.

What do you think of this plan and the global nudging movement in general?

Do you feel these efforts to nudge individuals (with bounded rationality to make choices that, at least from the outside, appear to be truer to consumer optimum) are of value? What behavioral obstacles did Thaler and Benartzi identify that apparently were causing people not to make choices in their best interests? Do you ever find the second obstacle applying to you (like, in getting around to doing this discussion, lol)? Is nudging something the government should financially support? Do you agree with President Trump that this movement, as well as most other policy issues related to science, should not be encouraged by the White House? Have you started saving for retirement yet?

This week’s reading assignment is Chapter 2: Principles of Economics with Applications in the Air Transport Industry.

This chapter introduces us to the economic way of thinking and fundamental concepts of economics including scarcity and opportunity cost. Pricing is used as an example of a microeconomic issue before moving on to macroeconomic issues including growth, inflation and unemployment.

The chapter continues with a discussion on the role of government in the economy and in aviation specifically, and ends with an explanation of two broad areas of economic failures.

This week’s written assignment will build upon your discussion post from Module 1. In that module, you made a thoughtful prediction regarding the health of the air transport industry over the next 36 months. In this week’s written assignment, using 300 – 500 words, you will further define your prediction using concepts covered in Chapter 2, answering the following question: Is your prediction based on microeconomic issues, on macroeconomic issues, or both? Fully explain your answer, demonstrating your understanding of the material presented in Chapter 2.

this essay has two parts. part one will be a summary of this article, you can write about 400 words. part two will be your own thoughts and commentary which is also 400 words. You can find the requirement in detail in the attached PDF file. Thank you.

In a recent unpublished Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis working paper (June 2020), Misty L. Heggeness investigated the impact the COVID-19 shock had on parents’ labor supply during the initial stages of the pandemic.

One of the consequences of the shutdowns has been a functional collapse of the childcare industry, and this has placed an unbalanced burden on working mothers. This observation led Ms. Heggeness to ask the following questions: “Will mothers be able to keep their jobs as … they are continually forced to balance childcare, household production, online schooling, and work? … (and) what role (will) fathers (or their significant others, podmates, housemates, etc.) play in the intermediate and long term?” (p. 21}

Given her questions, how do you see the domestic sphere and the formal labor market playing out over the next few years? What impact do you envision this pandemic having on gender wage equality, gender-based labor market participation rates, women’s’ rights, and mental health?

Assuming grade schools remain closed this semester and possibly into next, do you expect to see fathers, significant others, and/or extended family members (including podmates, quarantined buddies, etc.) stepping up across the board and taking on substantially increased roles in sharing household production and childcare or are you less optimistic and expect to see little domestic change at the household level, or, even worse, a greater increase in domestic violence, pod disorder, and/or divorce filings?  According to Ms. Heggeness, she strongly believes what happens in the domestic sphere will influence what happens in the labor market for both men and women.

Domestic responses to the abrupt changes we are now experiencing in the childcare industry have not and will not be uniform across households and demographic areas, but still which household trends do you think will likely dominate American society over the near term?  Search for some published data to support your opinion. Based on your opinion, can you think of anything we should be demanding from our government to promote the recovery of our childcare economy and to advance women’s rights as we continue to work through this pandemic and attempt to vaccinate the general public?