This was a mixed week for John Stumpf, the disgraced ex-CEO of Wells Fargo. A debacle with elements of farce occurring last Sunday on a United Airlines flight has replaced Stumpf with UAL’s CEO Oscar Munoz as hapless corporate executive…
A professor’s garden of rational expectations
Economics is the study of how humans make decisions about allocating scarce resources. We all do that every day. So I make my microecon students identify examples of key economic phenomena in their own daily activities. I demonstrate with examples…
Why farm ‘income’ is hard to measure
Nearly a third of Minnesota farmers are losing money, according to a joint report from our two statewide public university systems. This is not surprising news. Most farm product prices are down and everyone in the sector knows that farmers…
Does closing one liquor store hurt state tax revenue?
Mundane daily occurrences often involve some economics, hence the title of this column. The recent to-do over Surdyk’s liquor store in Minneapolis defying a state Sunday-closing law is no exception. The owner was promptly fined $2,000 and his license was…