December 26, 2025
Again confirming that economics is about much more than money, our Christmas top ten list connects the holiday to economics.
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- Justin Wolfers
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- McDonald's
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- mean grade inflation
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- meat economics
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- NASA's budget cuts
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- New Hampshire
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- oligopoly
- olive oil prices
- Olivia
- Olympic figure Skaters
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- one gas station's story
- online grocery shopping
- OPEC
- Open Claw
- opinions of extreme wealth
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- orange juice
- Oregon full service gasoline stations
- Oscar winner wagers
- oversupply
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- Ozempic and Wegovy
- P&G (Proctor and Gamble)
- pandemic impact
- Paramount Skydance
- parking chairs
- passing grade inflation
- Patek Philippe watches
- pay transparency
- paying attention
- peanut butter popularity
- peanut butter prices
- Pebble Index 01
- Peltzman Effect
- Pentagon Pizza Index
- perfectly competitive market
- Perrier
- Persian Gulf luxury sales
- perverse incentives
- pheasant tradeoffs
- physical capital
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- Pittsburgh
- pizza demand
- pizza garbage pails
- Pizza Hut
- pizza supply
- planning fallacy
- Platypus Economics
- plunging egg prices
- pony beer cans
- popular baby names
- popular World Cup cities
- potato demand
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- power of the market
- powering Amazon's data centers
- preference falsification
- Preferred Popcorn
- preparing Fifa referees
- President Richard Nixon's wage and price controls
- President Trump's FY2027 budget proposal
- price ceiling tradeoffs
- price elasticity of demand
- price floors
- price information
- price of an espresso
- price of crude
- price of gasoline
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- pricing basketball tickets
- pricing power
- pricing tariff refunds
- prisoners' dilemma
- private and social return
- private aviation
- probability neglect
- processed cheese
- product placement
- productive economic sectors
- productivity
- property rights
- psychology of cash
- psychology of money
- public choice theory
- Qatar
- quits rate
- railroad time
- ranking criteria
- Ray Croc
- Ray Madoff
- real Christmas trees
- recent college graduates
- recycling incentives
- recycling infrastructure
- recycling programs
- Red Lobster
- Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
- Reese's Pieces
- reference point dependency
- reference points
- regressive taxes
- remembering memory
- remote work
- René Magritte
- reopening the Strait of Hormuz
- research and development (R&D)
- Restaurant of Mistaken Orders
- restaurant orders
- Reverie Roasters
- reviewers' inflation
- rising condom prices
- rising grocery prices
- risk aversion
- robot adoption
- ROI (Return On Investment)
- Ronald Coase
- Russ Roberts and Mike Munger
- Russia
- S&P 493
- S&P 500
- S&P 500 history
- salary jealous
- sale overspending
- salmon tradeoffs]
- salt spreaders
- San Francisco
- San Francisco's trash bins
- Santa's delivery schedule
- Santa's productivity
- Santa's wages
- Sausi Arabia
- scarcity
- scary situations
- Scoville pepper heat scale
- second place sadness
- secondhand markets
- Seinfeld
- self-driving cars
- self-service gasoline
- shark attacks
- Sheldon
- Sherman Anti-trust Act
- ship insurance
- shipping delays
- shrinkflation
- signaling
- silver medal paradox
- Simon Kuznets
- sin taxes
- Singer sewing machines
- six fact series
- six stories series
- Skrilla's "Doot Doot"
- sleep and productivity
- sleep time
- slowing pizza sales
- small inventions
- small manufacturers
- SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program)
- SNAP funding
- snapshot of the economy
- snow plows
- soaring grocery prices
- social security
- Social Security problems
- Social Security solutions
- Social Security spending
- Social Security tradeoffs
- Soren Kierkegaard
- sound impact on property values
- South Africa's electricity outages
- Southwest assigned seats
- sovereign debt ratings
- soybean prices
- spacecraft toilet history
- SpaceX IPO
- SpaceX revenue
- Spain's economy
- Spain's olive crop
- speedy delivery
- spontaneous order
- spurious correlations examples
- Square
- stablecoins
- Stan the T.Rex
- standard kilogram
- standardized weights and measures
- Starlink
- stasis employment
- state spending on food at home
- state tip averages
- steel tariff
- Steve Levitt
- Steven Dubner
- stock market bubbles
- stock market indicators
- stock market losers
- story of Vanguard
- Strait of Hormuz
- strawberry competition
- subjective ranking critera
- subprime
- sulfur squeeze
- sulfuric acid
- sunk costs
- Super Bowl absenteeism
- supermarket design
- supermarket pricing power
- supply and demand
- supply chain
- Supply of fun
- supply shock
- supply shocks
- Supreme Court tariff decision
- surveillance pricing
- Switzerland
- Switzerland v. Colombia
- Taco Bell ultramarathon race
- Taco Bell value menu
- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Compay (TSMC)
- Takeru Kobayashi (Kobi)
- Tampa Florida
- TANSTAAFL (no free lunch)
- tariff exemptions
- tariff impact
- tariff refunds
- tariffs
- Taylor Swift
- Taylor Swift inflation impact
- Tesla Model Y
- the "gripper" chair cushions
- the Big Arch
- The Big Take Podcast
- the city effect
- the Cube Rule
- The Daily podcast
- The Decision Lab
- the Dow 30
- the game Monopoly
- The Great Crash
- the gripper
- The most popular states
- the Netherlands
- the power of the market
- the significance of 99 cents
- the superrich
- The Trolley Dilemma
- the U.S. budget
- The Wisdom of Crowds
- the world's longest escalator
- thinking at the margin
- third place joy
- Thomas Jefferson
- Thorstein Veblen
- Tide laundry detergent
- Tim Harford interview
- timekeeping history
- Timothée Chalamet
- tin can demand
- tin plate
- tipping
- toll roads
- tomato prices
- top 1%
- top S&P companies
- total factor productivity (TFP)
- total knee replacements
- toys
- trade friction
- trade wars
- tradeoffs
- traffic fatalities
- traffic flaggers
- tragedy of the commons
- transaction costs
- transportation infrastructure
- Trevor Noah
- triple whammy
- Trump FY 2027 budget proposal
- Trump tariff impact on farmers
- Trump tariff policies
- Trump tariffs
- U-4
- U.S. China trade
- U.S. debt
- U.S. economic growth
- U.S. Highway Trust Fund
- U.S. Postal Service (USPS)
- U.S. Space Force
- U.S. tax policy
- U.S. Treasury securities
- U.S. wine industry
- UBS Global Wealth Report 2025
- UBS Wealth Report
- Ulrike Malmendier
- UN's Beyond GDP
- understanding money
- unemployment
- UNESCO's Cultural Heritage
- unintended coinsequences
- unintended consequences
- United Parcel Service (UPS)
- United Van Lines migration study
- urea
- USDA
- useful economic ideas
- USMCA
- USPS finances
- vacation memories
- Valentine's cartoons
- variable pricing
- Veblen goods
- vehicle miles traveled (VMT)
- Venezuela attack
- Venezuela's economy
- Venezuelan hyperinflation
- Venezuelan oil production
- vessel bunching
- Vietnam coffee
- wage increases
- wages and salaries
- war insurance
- Warner Bros. Discovery
- water shortages
- wayfinders
- wealth concentration
- wealth inequality
- weekly
- weekly news roundup
- weekly roundup
- weight loss drugs
- weight loss wars
- Wendy's
- Wendy's CEO
- what ticket prices tell us
- Why we move
- William Baumol
- wine demand
- wine glut
- wine supply
- winners' happiness
- Wired article
- word of the year
- work from home (WFH)
- working hours
- working hours and lighting
- World Cup bronze winner
- World Cup hydration
- World Cup penalty shootout
- World Cup referees
- World Cup second place team
- World Cup team popularity
- World Cup ticket prices
- World Cup winner
- World Economic Outlook April 2026
- world energy production
- wrapping paper
- wristwatch history
- xkcd
- Yale grade inflation
- Yale Professor William Goetzmann
- yogurt stories
- yogurt wars
- Yubari crown melons
- Zepbound