Welcome to this site, the official site of Economics 488, Senior Capstone Seminar in Economics, at James Madison University. This site will demonstrate the upper blogosphere in economics, with contributions coming from students and the class instructor.
Economic Dynamics of the Media: Potential Effects on Information News Marketplace
For a representative republic, like the United States, to function as intended, citizens need to be able to vote for politicians who represent their own, subjectively determined, interests. Today, most rely on the news media to inform them, but,
Lost Passion with Fast Fashion
Fashion has become a trillion dollar global industry. In the United States alone, it contributes more than $250 billion to the economy. Recently, the industry has been experiencing a different type of trend – one toward fast fashion. Traditionally, apparel
US Investigation of Global Steel and Chinese Dumping
In late April, Trump, in conjunction with Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, initiated a probe into the nature of the US steel industry as well as into the global steel market. Articles from the Washington Post and Reuters indicate that
Moral Hazard in Universal Healthcare: Truth or Myth?
As the GOP has continually fought to develop a healthcare solution to replace the Affordable Care Act, new outlets and the upper blogosphere have become saturated with discussions of various possibilities and their implications. While the Affordable Care Act never
What Drives Prices in the Art Market? Will Blockchain Technology Provide Greater Price Transparency, and Move the Market to a True Equilibrium?
The art market is considered by many to be the last great, unregulated market. However, this remains an unsettling fact; the market is plagued with information asymmetry, quasi-monopoly institutions, and high concentrations of wealth that result in paintings reaching $179
Downtown Revitalization
Popular rhetoric suggests that the health and revitalization of downtown districts are important for the development of cities. Since their formations in the early 20th century, downtowns have had peaks and troughs in importance due to the growing concentration of
The Economics of Defense Spending
Defense spending has long occupied a sacred cow status in the American political arena. This status is in part due to conventional beliefs regarding the benefits of defense spending, most notably that it is a good way of stimulating the
Examining Economic Theory and the Empirics Behind US Charter School Performance and Parental Satisfaction
A national 3 percent increase in charter school enrollment from 2004 to 2014 and President Trump’s recent 168-million-dollar proposed budget increase for charter schools have once again opened the ideological floodgates between charter school critics and proponents. However, parents and
Why the United States Should Compensate Live Organ Donors
As of January 2016, 121,678 people are waiting for life saving organs. In the United States, the average person will wait anywhere from three to five years to receive a lifesaving organ, depending on their blood type (Organ Donation and
What is the U.S. Labor Market Telling Us About the State of the Economy?
On the first Friday of each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases a report entitled “The Employment Situation”, which offers details regarding the health of the U.S. labor market. The report is greatly anticipated for its headline “nonfarm