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The Disruptive Economist

Displaying 1 - 10 of 18 articles

If Tesla Energy has its way, these big batteries will soon help power businesses and utility companies across the country. Reuters

Is climate policy compatible with Tesla’s battery-fueled dreams?

Many of the targeted behavioral responses to climate change involve reducing energy consumption. This makes sense as the majority of energy consumed (pretty much throughout all history) has involved burning…
The last two digits of a product’s price sends signals about how badly you hope to sell. 1.99 via www.shutterstock.com

The last two digits of a price can signal your desperation to sell

While someone’s bargaining position can be shaped by competition, we economists know that there is a big gray area in our ability to predict negotiated prices. Competitive options for buyers and sellers…
Will Dash make the Internet of Things stick? Amazon

Amazon Dash finally brings sense to the Internet of Things

Amazon just announced a new product called the Dash button. Basically, it is a button with a label like Tide or Cottonelle, connected to the internet and available only to Amazon Prime members (you know…
Apple Watch Edition is the company’s first product targeting the uber-wealthy. Apple

The $10k Apple Watch is more than a product, it’s an HR policy

A lot has been written about the Apple Watch Edition and its price tag of more than $10,000, all the way up to $25,000. Many have decried it’s super luxury status, while others see it as shrewd strategy…
The phone that debuted in 2007 and disrupted an industry. Reuters

Why Apple and its iPhone confound disruption theorists

Nokia, Motorola, Sony-Ericsson and BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion were all victims of disruption. During the 1990s and 2000s, they shepherded the cell phone during its period of takeoff into ubiquity…
Tim Harford got it wrong on net neutrality. Poptech/flickr

Can competition fix net non-neutrality?

Short answer: it isn’t obvious that it can. Let me back up a second and explain why I am revisiting this issue. Tim Harford published an article a few days ago that took his masterful econsplaining skills…
Mobile shouldn’t escape the net of net neutrality.

Net neutrality should apply to mobile networks

As Internet service providers – both wired and wireless – continue to lose ground in the net neutrality debate, they have retreated to engineering requirements rather than economic arguments. Where previously…
Could CarPlay be the precursor to an Apple Car? Apple

The Apple Car will be really different … if it exists

It has been a week and the Apple Car rumor hasn’t been denied by Apple. (Here’s the background in case you have been living under a rock). So what are we to make of all this? Much of what has been talked…

A search for the unreal America

There is often lots of talk in American politics about the “real America.” Suffice it to say, implicit in that is that everyone wants to be real and so even an assertion to the contrary is an insult. Truth…