microeconomics

A year ago it was the hot topic, but business owners have seen there’s a limit to the president’s royal decrees In two weeks, I’m speaking to a group of companies in the packaging industry about issues affecting their businesses this year. I’m going to discuss the economy, navigating higher costs, leveraging new tax legislation, AI and what companies are doing to find and retain workers in a vola…

Tomato prices in the U.S. rose in the past few months, largely due to weather conditions such as winter storms in Florida and drought conditions in Mexico.

Greater Manchester mayor’s proposals amount to a notable criticism of Keir Starmer’s policy in the area Andy Burnham has proposed a 20% cut to business rates for pubs with many smaller, family-run enterprises taken out of paying the levy altogether, in his first major policy initiative during the Makerfield byelection. Burnham’s plans amount to a notable criticism of Keir Starmer’s policy in the …

German-owned discounter’s sales rise 8.8% year on year as households seek ways to keep bills down Lidl has overtaken Morrisons to become the UK’s fifth largest grocer as its sales were powered ahead by households seeking to keep a lid on their weekly bills. The German-owned discounter increased its sales by 8.8% year on year – making it the fastest-growing store-based grocer – to hit a record hig…

Digital platforms have changed what it means for a small business to enter the global market. A seller no longer needs a physical storefront abroad to learn what international customers want, but success still depends on knowing where to look for useful signals. This study shows that cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) platforms do more than connect buyers and sellers: they create hidden networks thro…

Costs can rise with chiplets. Will that change? Will it matter? The post With Chiplets, What Role Does Economics Play? appeared first on Semiconductor Engineering .

The counterfactual assertion that the United States is economically victimized by its trade relationship with Canada rests on three serious compounding errors. The first is conceptual: "deficit" is a fiscal term properly applied to budgets or stock depletion. The attempt to apply it to voluntary exchange instantly results in a category error equally incoherent regardless as to whether the exchang…

Many European motoring manufacturers are in retreat with plants to off–load – while China’s industry is on the march Chinese carmaker Xpeng is on the hunt for a factory in Europe. Volkswagen is aiming to reduce the number of its factories. It seems like it should have been the perfect set-up for a deal. Yet there was one problem with the plant on offer, according to Elvis Cheng, Xpeng’s managing …

The work of this manuscript is reconstructing economics based on use value to unify the structurally fragmented economics—including unifying macroeconomics and microeconomics, nominal variables (expressed in currency) and real variables, parts of microeconomics, and the operation theory of economy systems with the economics foundation—and to reflect the structure of economy systems (Please refer …

Tyler Cowen asks a good question about papers in microeconomics and macroeconomics, that generalizes to ecology papers: Imagine adding [a] button, to either micro or macro papers “Please rerun these results using what the AI thinks might be five other … Continue reading →

This article examines how the entry of commercial lenders (CLs) transforms microfinance markets, focusing on borrower outcomes and market-wide spillovers. Using detailed credit registry data, we show that increased competition improves loan terms for both graduating and staying borrowers, generating sustained benefits. Our setting also allows us to document what happens when entry fails and entra…

Economists blame corner gas stations and consumer behavior for the rocket-and-feathers phenomenon in the rise and fall of gasoline prices.

This story is part of a series highlighting the university’s outstanding graduates crossing the stage on May 16. First-generation student Evany Gonzalez fell in love with the field of economics and decided “why stop.” She received her undergraduate degree in economics in 2024, and this May she’ll graduate with her Masters of Science in Economics […] The post Economics student to earn her second d…

Tariffs Leave Consumers and Companies Splitting the Tab Consumers shouldered 43 percent of the tariff burden during the seven months after the US imposed sweeping levies, according to an analysis by Alberto Cavallo, PhD '10. Paul Massari Wed, 04/29/2026 - 10:49

Data, Competition, and Digital Platforms Bergemann, Dirk; Bonatti, Alessandro A monopolist platform uses data to match heterogeneous consumers with multiproduct sellers. The consumers can purchase the products on the platform or search off the platform. The platform sells targeted ads to sellers that recommend their products to consumers and reveals information to consumers about their match valu…

We consider a causal structure with endogeneity, i.e., unobserved confoundedness, where an instrumental variable is available. In this setting, we show that the mean social welfare function can be identified and represented via the marginal treatment effect as the operator kernel. This representation result can be applied to a variety of statistical decision rules for treatment choice, including …

When I was growing up, my dad and I would play a game at the grocery store: As the cashier was ringing up the items on the list my mom had given us, we each would guess what we thought the total would amount to. Whoever was closest won bragging rights, and maybe if we were feeling indulgent, the candy bar of our choosing. I’m shopping for just myself now, but I’m still pretty good at this game. T…

If you think food prices are increasing, you are right. I’ve been sent an analysis from Trace One. Trace One says “grocery prices rose 0.7% in December, the largest one-month increase since October 2022—underscoring how food costs remain a major pain point for households even as broader inflation cools.” Some of its findings: Grocery inflation […] The post What’s happening with prices at the groc…

Europe's retail market could become as big as the US - but first, the challenge is to find it, let alone describe how big it is. Global Trading digs into […]

Cracker Barrel’s original logo on the left and the logo it temporarily adopted in 2025 on the right. (Logos from nrn.com) Dan Evins opened the first Cracker Barrel Old Country Store on Highway 109 in Lebanon, Tennessee in 1969 to attract more customers to his Shell service station. The restaurant offered traditional Southern-style food such … Continue reading "Cracker Barrel’s Dilemma: What Happe…