Results tagged “economics”

In a real world example of supply and demand economics, the proliferation of Southeast Asian eateries on and around Williamsburg's main commercial street has hurt business, according to neighborhood restaurateurs. The pad thai business is ailing in a three block area centered around Bedford Avenue and North Sixth Streets, where four Thai and three Asian fusion restaurants compete, according to the Brooklyn Paper — which dubs the enclave "Brooklyn's Little Bangkok."

Leave it to a Nobel prize-winning economist to rain on Wall Street's parade! Joseph Stiglitz, who teaches at Columbia now, told Reuters that the Treasury Department's plan—embraced by the markets yesterday—"is very badly flawed." Pointing out that taxpayers are being used by the government to guarantee the assets, while private investors are getting the upside, Stiglitz said, "Quite frankly, this amounts to robbery of the American people. I don't think it's going to work because I think there'll be a lot of anger about putting the losses so much on the shoulder of the American taxpayer." Right now, stock futures are down. Stiglitz was cited by the 2001 Nobel Prize committee for his contributions about understanding asymmetric information in the markets.

Paul Krugman, Princeton University professor and NY Times op-ed columnist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics today. The Nobel prize committee gave the award for Krugman's "analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity." In other terms, he's looked at how economics of scale affects free trade and globalization (and urbanization). He told the Times this morning, "It’s been an extremely weird day, but weird in a positive way."