Soccernomics

With its 204 member countries, world soccer's governing body, FIFA, has more members than the United Nations. But besides being a force for good in the world — as FIFA President Sepp Blatter is fond of claiming — the game has become big business. Names like Beckham, Zidane and Ronaldo are known from Manchester to Mozambique. Our Globalist Factsheet explains.
http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=2514

The Socio-Economic Determinants of International Soccer Performance
This paper reports regression results identifying the variables influencing a country's performance in international soccer games. The results reveal that economic, demographic, cultural and climatic factors are important. In particular, inverted U-shape relationships are identified with respect to temperature and per-capita wealth. We also find a significant interaction between Latin cultural origin and population size, while both variables are individually insignificant. Explanations for our results are offered.
http://ideas.repec.org/a/cem/jaecon/v5y2002n2p253-272.html

The world economy will benefit most from an Italian victory at the football World Cup in June/July, according to ABN AMRO's economists in their 'Soccernomics 2006' study...

ABN AMRO's economists take as their starting point the imbalances in the world economy, above all the US current account deficit. Additional growth in Europe would cushion the inevitable correction to this situation. To achieve this, a major European country needs to win the World Cup to spark an economic upswing. The 'economic final' in soccernomics should therefore be between Germany and Italy, with Italy lifting the World Cup.
http://www.abnamro.com/pressroom/releases/2006/2006-03-22-en.jsp

Drawing Parallels between Soccer and Economics
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1171699,00.html

the economics of advertising

http://www.columbia.edu/~kwb8/advertisingintrofv2.pdf

the economics of problems

Million-Dollar Murray
Why problems like homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage.

Happiness & Economics

Happiness and Economics: How the Economy and Institutions Affect Human Well-Being.
...Far more important than wealth to well-being, [the authors] say, is democracy.
Maybe that explains the result of the post-GE survey on what Singaporeans value most


Happiness is the new Economics
Dr Richard Suzman, associate director of the National Institute on Ageing, part of the US National Institutes of Health: "A national wellbeing account, similar to the gross domestic product, would give us a better understanding of how changes in policy and social trends affect quality of life."

Jean

The Economics of Spam

...it's all about economics. And basically the economics of e-mail are severely distorted.
http://acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=108

PS: If you have a good, free spamblocker for Outlook Express, please send me the address to download it from. Thanks! =)

Jean

Goodbye, Merlin Champagne Town

China starts to crack down on the lifestyles of the rich and famous
http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501060612-1200805,00.html

Hm. Transition economy?

Are your vices killing your finances?

...our three favorite vices: alcohol, cigarettes and coffee.

The high cost of bad habits

...we actually bundle them into our cost of living without a second thought, as if they were necessities...

Living wage

Living wage refers to the minimum hourly wage necessary for a person to achieve some arbitrarily defined standard of living.
-Wikipedia: Living wage

Living wage: How about $9 an hour?
With the federal minimum wage stuck at $5.15 for years, cities and states are rebelling. The so-called living-wage campaign rewards workers, but critics say it discourages business.

Opponents of the living-wage movement believe market forces, not regulation, should set wages.

"More often than not, low or unskilled workers are displaced from the job they hold," oftentimes being replaced by a high-school student lured by the higher pay, Doyle said.

...increasingly, Americans see the living wage as a moral issue, and are voting in living-wage ordinances to address the widening gap between rich and poor.
Continue reading at MSN

See MSN Money's 25 Top-rated Articles

I did it again. Came online for a break from Econs and started reading Econs articles.

Oh well.

Side effect of Econs overload.

Phoenix

when overtime doesn't pay for companies

In the cost-benefit analysis... computer security hasn't been taken in account.
http://redtape.msnbc.com/2006/05/a_modest_propos.html#posts

Good grief, I came online to take a break from Econs & in the end I end up here. Haha. The irony.

Happy holidays.

Jean