econlife - Does a Calorie Label Make Us Eat Less? by Elaine Schwartz

According to the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA), 2011 was the year that specified food vendors and restaurant chains with more than 20 locations had to post calorie counts. But because of “Big Pizza’s” resistance, they waited until 2018. Domino’s even said that their custom pizzas could have 34 million calorie permutations. Pizza Hut said it had 2 billon possibilities. (Is that possible?)

The ACA goal was to get us to eat fewer calories.

The Impact of Calorie Labels

In a recent study at one restaurant, researchers compared 1546 diners who did and did not have calorie labels on their menus. After the meal, the participants were asked about their calorie consumption.

A significant number of the group without the labels underestimated their calorie intake. Whereas they ordered meals with an average of 1341 calories, their average estimate was 1080. The size of the error ranged from 10 percent to more than 50 percent.

You can see below that the higher the calorie count, the larger the under-estimation:

Predictably, the group that had the menus with the calorie labels were more accurate. But not entirely.  Accuracy was up by 4 percent. Still, some underestimated their calorie intake and others overestimated. Men tended to pay less attention to the calorie totals.

At this point I was curious about the impact of knowing your calories. According to one recent study on what we order at fast food outlets, it did not make a huge difference. Using data from 104 restaurants before and after implementing the labeling law, researchers wound up with three years’ of transactions. From 50 million purchases, they observed that there was an initial decrease of approximately 60 calories. However, the decline was not sustained. It soon dwindled down to 23.

Our Bottom Line: Present Bias

A behavioral economist might have suggested that the calorie labels required by the Affordable Care Act will have a minimal impact because of our tendency toward a present bias. In the present, the cost of caloric restraint is considerable. We have a bias toward our current benefits and postponing the cost for later.

My sources and more: Always handy, this month’s NBER Digest alerted me to the calorie study. Then the BMJ had the fast food study.

Ideal for the classroom, econlife.com reflects Elaine Schwartz’s work as a teacher and a writer. As a teacher at the Kent Place School in Summit, NJ, she’s been an Endowed Chair in Economics and chaired the history department. She’s developed curricula, was a featured teacher in the Annenberg/CPB video project “The Economics Classroom,” and has written several books including Econ 101 ½ (Avon Books/Harper Collins). You can get econlife on a daily basis! Head to econlife.

econlife - Jaywalking and the Tradeoff Between Order and Openness by Elaine Schwartz

Our story starts at 11 pm and a green traffic light. Except for one pedestrian, the streets are empty. There are no cars, no other people.

In Berlin, the individual crosses the street when the light turns red. In Boston, no one waits. Explaining the different behaviors, a psychologist from the University of Maryland says one culture is tight and the other is loose.

Where are we going? To how tight and loose social norms affect behavior.

Tight and Loose Social Norms

At home you could be someone who likes order. You load the dishwasher with the forks next to each other, the knives, next and then the spoons. But your mate does not.

On a national level, the parallel could be the Japanese World Cup fans who did some clean-up after the game because their culture tends to be more orderly. Their Brazilian hosts did not.

According to psychologist Michele Gelfand, our rules about rules vary. In a tighter culture, there are more rules and people are expected to observe them. Meanwhile, looser cultures not only have fewer rules but the boundaries are more ambiguous. Essentially we are looking at the power of social norms.

Dr. Gelfand suggests that national threats generate stronger social norms. The list could include invasions, natural disasters, diseases–wherever survival required coordinated behavior. Meanwhile, the countries or even communities that faced fewer existential challenges had less of a need for societal coordination. If you imagine a continuum, then Japan, Germany, Singapore, and South Korea are among the countries on the tight end while the other pole includes New Zealand, Greece, the Netherlands, and Brazil.

In the United States, states vary. On that scale, Dr. Gelfand says the tighter cultures are located in the South and some parts of the Midwest. They include Mississippi, South and North Carolina, Kentucky, and Louisiana. Meanwhile, some of the states that “veer looser” are New York, California, Oregon, Maine, and Massachusetts.

Our Bottom Line: Tradeoffs

As economists, we can focus on the tradeoff between order and openness. We can look at our investing habits, at corporate merger cultures, and even at our political preferences. Tighter cultures tend to have less obesity, less debt, and less alcoholism. Even pets are skinnier in Germany (I wonder if Dr. Gelfand has those stats.). Meanwhile, looser cultures have more creativity and tolerate differences. Explaining the response to COVID-19, Dr. Gelfand believes that tighter cultures have had more success containing the spread of the virus.

So perhaps we can say that late night behavior at a traffic signal could provide a clue about the strategies for fighting a pandemic.

My sources and more: Yesterday, this Hidden Brain podcast on tight and loose cultures made a long walk seem much shorter. From there, I looked at this Science article to see how 33 countries varied. But if you read just one article, do look at Dr. Gelfand’s comments on the spread of the coronavirus in the Boston Globe. Finally though, you could have some fun (as did I) taking her tight/loose quiz to quantify your own mindset.

Ideal for the classroom, econlife.com reflects Elaine Schwartz’s work as a teacher and a writer. As a teacher at the Kent Place School in Summit, NJ, she’s been an Endowed Chair in Economics and chaired the history department. She’s developed curricula, was a featured teacher in the Annenberg/CPB video project “The Economics Classroom,” and has written several books including Econ 101 ½ (Avon Books/Harper Collins). You can get econlife on a daily basis! Head to econlife.

econlife - How Eating Less Popcorn Is Like Smoking Fewer Cigarettes by Elaine Schwartz

Sometimes people want to eat stale popcorn.

During one experiment filmgoers were asked to rate several movie trailers. Instead, researchers were looking at eating habits by giving some participants freshly popped popcorn while others got a week-old stale batch. Yes, everyone consumed the fresh stuff. But some also appeared to be enjoying the stale popcorn.

Where are we going? To how we make and break habits.

Popcorn Habits

It turned out that the stale and fresh eaters had different habits. The people who said the stale popcorn was inedible tended not to down popcorn while at the movies. Those that ate it said they regularly consumed popcorn while watching a film. Researchers hypothesized that the group with the popcorn habit just did what they always do with little thought.

To see how they could break a habit, the next step was to ask people to eat their popcorn with a right hand if they were lefties and a left hand if they were righties. The result then was much less consumption of bad tasting popcorn.

Smoking Habits

The popcorn experiment provides some insight about why fewer adults smoke cigarettes. Since the 1960s, the rate has continued to sink. From 42.4 percent in 1965 and 16.8 percent in 2014, the adult smoking rate went down to 13.7 percent in 2018:

At first health experts and regulators told us that smoking was bad for us. On the package, in the media, word of mouth, all said that you get lung cancer and emphysema from smoking. People knew it.

But they kept smoking.

Then though laws were passed that eliminated cigarettes from vending machines. To buy them you had to request a pack from behind the counter. To smoke, you had to leave the office or the restaurant and sometimes even the bar. That was when smoking rates went down. It wasn’t will power that made people stop. It was about the hassle.

Our Bottom Line: Friction

In physics, friction slows the movement of a sliding object. In economics, it diminishes a person’s willingness and ability to do something.

When a behavior is a habit, we do it automatically, thinking little, acting immediately. However, if it’s not habitual, then just contemplating the action creates some friction. For movie goers, there was little friction for the habitual popcorn eaters until they had to switch hands.

Similarly for smoking.  As a habit, smoking cigarettes used to be frictionless. But then as the friction went up, demand went down.

Whether it’s cigarettes or another undesirable commodity, more friction can decrease demand, But when your goal is the opposite, just do what Netflix does and immediately take us to the next episode. Or use one-click like Amazon. We cannot resist because there is no friction.

My sources and more: Always interesting, NPR’s Hidden Brain focused this week on making and breaking habits. Their Wendy Wood interview took me to her research lab. Then, for my smoking data, The Washington Post had a fascinating summary of who smokes and some history as did the CDC.

Ideal for the classroom, econlife.com reflects Elaine Schwartz’s work as a teacher and a writer. As a teacher at the Kent Place School in Summit, NJ, she’s been an Endowed Chair in Economics and chaired the history department. She’s developed curricula, was a featured teacher in the Annenberg/CPB video project “The Economics Classroom,” and has written several books including Econ 101 ½ (Avon Books/Harper Collins). You can get econlife on a daily basis! Head to econlife.

econlife - The Two Best Ways to Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions by Elaine Schwartz

For several years, I’ve listened to “page-turner” best-sellers when I do the dinner dishes. As Tom Hanks read Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House, I actually looked for extra plates to wash. Somewhat similarly, I get myself to lift weights regularly by leaving 6- and 10-pounders on my closet shelf.

The page-turners and the closet shelf are commitment devices. Called temptation bundling and piggybacking by behavioral economists, they can help us keep our New Year’s resolutions.

New Year’s Resolutions

Temptation Bundling

With temptation bundling, we combine our “wants” and “shoulds.” Temptation bundling limits the time used for your indulgent wants while encouraging a distasteful activity that will be good for you. You wind up with less of the “wants” and more of the “shoulds.” Done alone, each activity has less utility. Done together they create a value boost.

The Experiment


To see if temptation bundling had academic resilience, researchers divided 151 people who wanted to exercise into two groups. One group received iPods loaded with tempting page-turner novels that could be accessed only at the gym. The second group didn’t have the book incentive.

The results confirmed most of what we would expect. Group 1’s workouts exceeded the control group by 27%. So yes, temptation bundling did increase the frequency of the undesirable activity—the “should.” However, we should note that it didn’t kickstart a permanent workout regiment. After a temporary Thanksgiving break, neither group displayed “staying power.”

Piggybacking

With piggybacking, we “attach” a new task to one that we habitually do. The result is a cue. After accomplishing what we usually do, we have something that is supposed to come next.

The Experiment


In one study, researchers looked at flossing. Wondering what could get us to floss our teeth regularly, they used when as the key variable. The experiment had two groups of flossers. One was supposed to floss before brushing their teeth and the other, after. The power of the piggyback was confirmed by the experiment. The “after” group not only flossed more during the test period but more of them did it in the 8-month follow-up.

Our Bottom Line: Commitment Devices

Temptation bundling and piggybacking are two of many commitment devices. Defined by behavioral economists, commitment devices are incentives that encourage us to stick with an activity.

Other devises?

The New Yorker called it the Ulysses Strategy. When graduate students opted for a monetary punishment if they did not buy healthy food, the incentive had an impact among those who committed:

In addition, smaller plates at a buffet can make us take smaller portions. Another possibility is placing money into a deposit contract that requires forfeiture if you don’t carry out your end of the bargain. Also, those year-long gym memberships are an example (unless you’re one of those typical individuals who still doesn’t go).

For me, temptation bundling (the dishes) and piggybacking (the weights) so far work. I guess we each can choose the commitment device that perpetuates our New Year’s resolutions.

My sources and more: In The Washington Post, Penn Professor Katherine Milkman takes us to several commitment devices. Much drier, the academic formula for health interventions is described in this paper. Then, for a fast read, here is a brief summary of a flossing study. However, the best sources that combined the academics and some fun were Freakonomics and The New Yorker.

Our featured image is from Gerd Altmann at Pixabay.

This was an updated version from last year. I hope you enjoyed it.

Ideal for the classroom, econlife.com reflects Elaine Schwartz’s work as a teacher and a writer. As a teacher at the Kent Place School in Summit, NJ, she’s been an Endowed Chair in Economics and chaired the history department. She’s developed curricula, was a featured teacher in the Annenberg/CPB video project “The Economics Classroom,” and has written several books including Econ 101 ½ (Avon Books/Harper Collins). You can get econlife on a daily basis! Head to econlife.

econlife - Why Online Grocery Shopping Is Good for Us by Elaine Schwartz

In many places, at most times, within two hours, an Amazon Prime member can have a Whole Foods grocery order in his fridge.

It sounds good. But not necessarily.

The Stores

The delivery people are changing the shopping experience. Some regular shoppers complain that they are getting elbowed out of where they are going by a harried person filling an order. Deli counter customers report that service is slower because of the larger orders the professional shoppers have to fill. Others say hard-to-get items like wild salmon run out by midmorning because of the online demand.

An Instacart professional shopper:

But most of us still go to the grocery store.

Online Grocery Shopping

What we buy at the store though is different from when we order online. According to a recent study, online, we tend to order healthier foods. We get more dairy, fruits, and vegetables and fewer sweets and snacks. Perhaps because we are distracted less and we get the groceries sooner, we have more self-control. It’s also possible that pictures of snacks are less compelling than the real thing.

In addition, one economist suggests that online ordering could help us lose weight. She observed that households purchase fewer calories when shopping online. At two calories less per ounce, we consume 53 calories fewer calories a day. Just from shopping online, we could lose five pounds a year! (But do we gain the weight from staying at home rather than running around the store?)

Our Bottom Line: Behavioral Economics

Behavioral economists tell us that we tend to make healthy plans for the future rather than for now. The best example is the sports club membership that we never use. It’s the New Year’s diet that we sincerely expect to follow.

When buying our groceries online, we are also contemplating the future.  Online, we activate our long-term selves. In the store, it’s the short term version. Ordering from home, we tend to select the “shoulds.” In the store, we can grab our “wants.”

So maybe it’s okay that those Prime shoppers are destroying our in-store experience. We might be healthier ordering from home.

My sources and more: WSJ started me thinking about the impact of online grocery shopping. Then, for the home side, this paper said all you could want to know about the online grocery shopper.

Ideal for the classroom, econlife.com reflects Elaine Schwartz’s work as a teacher and a writer. As a teacher at the Kent Place School in Summit, NJ, she’s been an Endowed Chair in Economics and chaired the history department. She’s developed curricula, was a featured teacher in the Annenberg/CPB video project “The Economics Classroom,” and has written several books including Econ 101 ½ (Avon Books/Harper Collins). You can get econlife on a daily basis! Head to econlife.

econlife - When Awards Give Us More or Less Than We Expect by Elaine Schwartz

An award solved a problem at German Wikipedia. It had been typical for someone to write only one article.

But then they created an award. People who wrote multiple entries got a special badge printed on their profile page. Their names were also listed near the award’s description. While the recognition had a benefit, the cost to Wikipedia was minimal. Before it existed, 35% of their writers submitted another article. Afterwards, 42%.

For Wikipedia, an award did what it was supposed to do. Others have not.


Awards That Backfire

In one study, students who got a “perfect attendance award” subsequently diminished the days they went to school. Researchers have hypothesized that the recipients realized it was okay to do less. They concluded that awards should not honor what you are supposed to do.

At econlife, we’ve written about Olympic medal winners. Of course the gold medal winners are the happiest but so too are the bronze recipients. However, many silver medalists are not quite as ecstatic. The reason? Because the gold was their focus.

Recipients could also be unhappy when too many awards are given. We might call this phenomenon award inflation. Or, you might devalue an award when giving it to people who don’t deserve it. If a recipient is a friend, family, or someone getting unearned adulation, then the award loses some of its credibility.

Funny Awards

Sometimes a “fake” award can make fun of the real thing and still generate admiration for the recipients. Halle Berry received a Worst Actress Golden Raspberry (a Razzie) for her performance in Catwoman (1/4 from Roger Ebert; 3.3/10 from IMDb ). During an acceptance speech that mimicked the Academy Awards, she warmly thanked Warner Brothers and all the people it takes to create so bad a film.

If you are a fan of The Office (as am I), you will enjoy this Dundie award ceremony. For some smiles, do take a look:

Our Bottom Line: Boosting the Market

Awards are a social experience. Group appreciation is supposed to inspire certain behaviors like community service or high grades. At work, management could be saying thank you for many years of service or the armed forces might want to honor bravery. Most Nobel Prizes are for scholarly achievements.

Because awards exist in social territory, they complement the market. The law of supply says we produce more when price climbs higher. But when cash is not enough, awards provide an extra incentive. Sort of like an energy bar, they give a boost to the market (and to German Wikipedia).

My sources and more: Thanks to Hidden Brain for an awards podcast that provided most of my facts.

Ideal for the classroom, econlife.com reflects Elaine Schwartz’s work as a teacher and a writer. As a teacher at the Kent Place School in Summit, NJ, she’s been an Endowed Chair in Economics and chaired the history department. She’s developed curricula, was a featured teacher in the Annenberg/CPB video project “The Economics Classroom,” and has written several books including Econ 101 ½ (Avon Books/Harper Collins). You can get econlife on a daily basis! Head to econlife.

econlife - How an Art Heist Is like the Government Shutdown by Elaine Schwartz

An art thief, the U.S. President, and Democratic party leaders could all share the same dilemma.

Let’s take a look.

The Art Heist

On May 20, 2010, a thief called Spiderman stole five paintings from a French museum. After removing a window and avoiding the alarms, he left with works done by Léger, Matisse, Modigliani, Braque, and Picasso. Their value? $70 million or so.

The stolen Léger was “Still Life With Candlestick”:

The thief’s voicemail even said, “If you want to buy paintings or works of art, or exceptional jewelry, do not hesitate to contact me. Among the many paintings, there are five that are extremely expensive.” So yes, months later the police arrested the man who did the heist and the two men who were trying to sell the paintings for him. While one confessed and the others did not, all were convicted. Now serving sentences from 6 to 8 years, they won’t say where to find the stolen loot.

And this is where economic theory enters the picture.

If they all know where the paintings are hidden, it’s to their advantage to act together when they leave prison. However, one cannot be sure what the others will do. If one of the three acts in his own interest first then the others will suffer. But if they wait, they could all benefit. Assuming they cannot coordinate a strategy in jail, each has to decide which course of action is optimal. Each needs to understand game theory.

The Shutdown

December 22, 2018 was the first day that the U.S. government partially shut down. For it to open, politicians need to negotiate an agreement on issues that relate to border security and immigration. Like the art felons, they are figuring out a balance between cooperation and competition.

The length of shutdown negotiations:

Also like the felons, their individual goals differ. Consequently, each has to decide how much to sacrifice for a mutually sought outcome.

Our Bottom Line: Game Theory

Sometimes you have to know what your opponent will do in order to decide how to act. The problem though is that it’s all a prediction. You have to figure out your response before you know what to respond to. What you do can be explained by game theory.

Prison

A classic example of game theory is called the prisoner’s dilemma. When two partners in crime are arrested, one knows that if he confesses and his partner does not, then he will go free. But if both keep quiet, they both go to jail for one year. Because they are questioned separately, no one knows what the other has said. But the results depend on how much the other person admitted.

The dilemma: Keep quiet or confess?

Called the economics of cooperation (or non-cooperation), game theory explains the prisoners’ alternatives. When big businesses compete, game theory provides insight about their pricing strategy. In a soccer game, we can use game theory to understand shootouts.

And, when President Trump, Speaker Pelosi, and Minority Leader Schumer negotiate the end of the shutdown, each one’s strategy relates to game theory.

My sources and more: In an excellent piece, The New Yorker told about the Paris art heist. Meanwhile, in 2014, Quartz focused on soccer shootout game theory and The Economist had a good discussion of how game theory works. But if you just read one article, do look at this John Nash obituary.

Please note that sections of today’s Bottom Line were in a previous econlife post.

Ideal for the classroom, econlife.com reflects Elaine Schwartz’s work as a teacher and a writer. As a teacher at the Kent Place School in Summit, NJ, she’s been an Endowed Chair in Economics and chaired the history department. She’s developed curricula, was a featured teacher in the Annenberg/CPB video project “The Economics Classroom,” and has written several books including Econ 101 ½ (Avon Books/Harper Collins). You can get econlife on a daily basis! Head to econlife.

econlife - Why We Suffer From FOMO by Elaine Schwartz

Today, some thoughts about FOMO…

Every morning, I walk and listen to one or two economic podcasts.

Years ago, the choices were few. Because there was just Econtalk and Planet Money, my decision was an easy one. On Mondays, I listened to each new academic discussion from Econtalk. Then Tuesday, I looked forward to Planet Money. After that, This American Life and Radio Lab were Wednesday and Thursday possibilities. As for the rest of the week, having heard all the new podcasts, I could even select an episode from a Great Courses lecture series.

No more.

Ranging from Amicus to Trade Talks, and Outside/In to More or Less, and Crazy Genius to Mismatched, my podcast series library is currently at 70! I guess it makes sense that most mornings I suffer from FOMO.

FOMO

FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and its sister symptom FOBO (Fear of a Better Option), both drive us to consider every alternative. However FOMO pushes us to do more while FOBO holds us back. The Boston Globe called the FOMO phenomenon a “hallmark of the digital age.” With social media telling us everything our friends are doing and much more, we have a slew of vacations, movies, Netflix series, restaurants to ponder. And it can be exhausting.

Legend has it that FOMO was first described by a marketing strategist in 2000. Four years later, an HBS student newspaper column spread the word and then the academics started investigating FOMO. Still now, it appears every once in a while in a headline like this one from Bloomberg: “Investing in An Age of FOMO is Hard.”

You might enjoy (as did I) this excerpt from the 2004 HBS Op-Ed that connects FOMO, FOBO, and FODA:

“…FOMO and FOBO are irreconcilably opposing forces, the antithesis of yin and yang, and can drive a person towards a paralytic state I’ll call FODA, or Fear Of Doing Anything…”

“…Notice that as a person becomes more and more FOMO, the energy needed to maintain such an active social life is tremendous. On the other extreme, practicing aggressive FOBO will only serve to alienate your friends. Poor management of the trade-off’s between the two forces leads to FODA…”

So yes, we can observe FOMO, FOBO, and FODA. But a behavioral economist would say it is really about decision fatigue.

Our Bottom Line: Decision Fatigue

Behavioral economists have concluded that too much choice can impact our subsequent behavior. Called decision fatigue, we tire from too many choices.

At a German car dealer, researchers observed consumers’ behavior. They watched them choose among four styles of gearshift knobs and 13 kinds of wheel rims. There were 25 configurations of the engine and gearbox and 56 color combinations for the interior. As the decisions accumulated, the (more expensive) default option became more attractive. They even saw that if those 56 colors were initially presented, buyers chose the default sooner.

Buying a car returns us to my massive podcast library and the stress of wondering about all of the alternatives we might not choose. Because that concern fatigues us, it affects the quality of our decision-making. It can even result in FODA…

Which then takes me to my Audible novel rather than one of 70 podcasts.

My sources and more: If you want to learn about decision fatigue, do read this excellent NY Times Magazine article from John Tierney. And, this is the HBS Op-Ed that initially popularized FOMO.

Ideal for the classroom, econlife.com reflects Elaine Schwartz’s work as a teacher and a writer. As a teacher at the Kent Place School in Summit, NJ, she’s been an Endowed Chair in Economics and chaired the history department. She’s developed curricula, was a featured teacher in the Annenberg/CPB video project “The Economics Classroom,” and has written several books including Econ 101 ½ (Avon Books/Harper Collins). You can get econlife on a daily basis! Head to econlife.

econlife - Do Mandatory Calorie Labels Matter? by Elaine Schwartz

Through the calorie count labels required by the Affordable Care Act, regulators hope we will consume less fattening food.

But before we consider the impact of the mandate, let’s look at an alternative…

Activity Equivalent Labels

Some say activity equivalent labels are more meaningful then calories.

To burn the calories in five chicken wings, you would need to jog for an hour:

One serving of pasta salad would necessitate 30 minutes of situps:

And, you could offset the calories in three chocolate chip cookies with a long power yoga session:

Instead of exercise, though, larger U.S. restaurant chains are posting their calorie count equivalents.

The Calorie Label Mandate

According to the 2010 Affordable Care Act, 2011 was the year that specified food vendors and restaurant chains with more than 20 locations had to post calorie counts. One reason for the delay was “Big Pizza’s” resistance. Domino’s even said that their custom pizzas could have 34 million calorie permutations. (Is that possible?)

But still, the regulators persisted and yesterday, the mandate began. The FDA summarized what we can expect from them:

However, no one is quite sure about the impact.

Our Bottom Line: Supply and Demand

Supply

On the supply side, we do know how some firms have responded to mandatory calorie labels in the past. Eater tells us that a Johns Hopkins study found more lower calorie food options were offered. Similarly, NPR reported that Starbucks was offering smaller pastries with lower calorie counts.

However, Domino’s cal-o-meter was most interesting. Do note that their serving metric for a meal is a single slice. Consequently, a hand-tossed Ultimate Pepperoni 10″ pizza has just 250 calories…if you eat one-sixth of it.

Demand

As for demand, I wonder if our response to calorie counts echoes how we usually compare short term benefit and long term cost. The pleasure from chicken wings, pasta salad, and chocolate chip cookies makes it easy to ignore future health problems.

So, returning to where we began, perhaps an “activity equivalent” would not meaningfully change our preference for short term pleasure.

Here are more activity equivalents:

My sources and more: Perfect calorie focused overviews, this Vox article and MarketWatch have it all. But if you want to read more, Eater and CNN and the Washington Post each had a different perspective.

Our featured image is from Ed Ou/AP through an NPR story.

Ideal for the classroom, econlife.com reflects Elaine Schwartz’s work as a teacher and a writer. As a teacher at the Kent Place School in Summit, NJ, she’s been an Endowed Chair in Economics and chaired the history department. She’s developed curricula, was a featured teacher in the Annenberg/CPB video project “The Economics Classroom,” and has written several books including Econ 101 ½ (Avon Books/Harper Collins). You can get econlife on a daily basis! Head to econlife.