Summary: Gamification– combining game-like features with non-game activities– is ubiquitous. From health to education apps, companies use this tool to help consumers achieve goals. But today’s author argues that it is not all fun and games and that gamification is being used to coerce individuals into doing things they would not have otherwise. Is society better or worse off with these “artificial” incentives?
Summary: A fourth British PM is trying to solve one of Brexit’s complicated tangles– how to treat Northern Ireland which shares a land border with the EU (Republic of Ireland). Parties on both sides of the debate are watching intently as failure of PM Sunak’s “Windsor Framework” may bring back vestiges of “The Troubles.”
***Our own Dr. Moryl was in Northern Ireland this weekend! She saw Warrenpoint and Omeath–a proposed new bridge to come in linking land trade routes from the north to the south.
Summary: Recent surges in prices for important commodities like eggs and oil have led to a flurry of politicians and advocacy groups decrying “price-gouging.” But what exactly is price-gouging? As the podcast highlights, most economists would argue that it is a highly subjective concept, rather than a technical economic term.
Summary: As policy makers grapple with the debt ceiling, the podcast digs into the notion of a balanced budget. While tying the debt ceiling limit to a balanced is an appealing to some fiscal conservatives, in reality “extreme” fiscal responsibility is likely impractical, and getting to balanced budget will require deeper structural changes to the government budget.
Summary: As the Federal Reserve targets higher interest rates to stabilize prices, they also want to keep unemployment low. The Indicator speaks with a Fed President about this dual mandate– its history, the trade-offs it involves and how it makes sense.
Summary: Ben & Jerry’s and Haagen-Dazs are the two top brands in the super-premium ice cream market. Curiously, the brands do not offer similar flavors. Ben & Jerry’s makes “chunky” type ice-cream while Haagen-Dazs only offers creamy, smooth ice cream on super market shelves. What is going on? Planet Money looks at a possible explanation– collusive behavior.
Summary: New inflation numbers are out. Inflation is not increasing steadily like it was a few months ago, but it still remains stubbornly high, much higher that Fed’s ideal 2% rate. Today’s show examines whether the “wage-price spiral”–a feedback loop between rapidly increasing prices and wages like we saw in the 1970s- is still a threat in the macroeconomy. Or are they days of the “doom loop” past us and we are in a wage-price paradigm?
Summary: AI systems like “DALL E 2” can create images based on a description. Like other types machine learning algorithms, the systems are trained on existing art. The adoption of this technology to generate and sell art has irked artists who claim that their intellectual property rights are being violated. The podcasts delves into one particular story like this.
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