Relative social status

The human motive to pursue relative social status is widely recognized within and beyond academia, but there is still room to integrate it further with economic theory. Status-seeking seems to have implications on labor supply and could explain why people tend to work the same amount across time, regions, and income levels. There are many […]

Achieving happiness through low expectations

Today, when I was visiting potential apartments to move into in Barcelona, I thought about which one I should choose and tried to figure out what properties of an apartment are valuable over time, and what gimmicks will do I overestimate the value of and normalize quickly. The extended thought is whether it is possible […]

The Effortless Happiness

How come life seems to come so easy and effortless to some people? Watching others pursuing life comfortably with ease, seemingly in absence of hard work and sacrifices, may bring envious feelings. Especially if you yourself keep struggling despite the great efforts to keep on fighting every single day. Living happily at ease without the […]

Global effects from corona restrictions

Although there have been some differences in how national governments across the world have chosen to respond to the corona pandemic, the general trend among large countries has been to restrict the transmission of the disease by prohibiting markets to exist and paying people to stay home from work through a variety of economic programs. […]

Cover letter

I am Elias, a 25 years old man originally from Gothenburg, Sweden, living in Barcelona. I am currently in the final term of my Master’s degree in economics at the University of Gothenburg. One of my great interests is to follow scientific progress, obviously in economics, but also in other fields such as physics, psychology, […]

Resume

Education August 2021 – June 2023: Master of Science in Economics (yet to be finished). Content: A conventional economics Master. Due to my passion and future Ph.D. plans, I have put additional weight towards behavioral economics and microeconomics, but I have also taken advanced classes in macroeconomics, finance, and econometrics. Credits: Two years of full-time […]

Do we gain from trade?

Whenever we purchase anything, we contribute to the economy by being the first or last domino brick, depending on how you see it, in many trades affecting millions of people throughout the supply chain across the world. These trades are what bring economic value and human progression to this world.

Why have prices increased lately?

In economics, changes in price levels are called inflation. During the 21st century, virtually all western countries have had a much lower rate of inflation, i.e. price increase, than we have had historically. One reason may be that economists now understand inflation quite well, compared to a few decades ago. Milton Friedman won the Nobel […]

How developing countries progress

There is an ongoing debate in the economic literature about whether developing countries are catching up with the western world economically or not. The answer is that it depends on what region of the world we are observing, and there are several hypotheses as to why some developing countries do progress well economically while others […]