Driving Up Fatalities: Why Flight Vaccine Mandates Would (Likely) Backfire
2023-11-18
During the height of the covid-19 pandemic, some politicians and voters advocated for covid vaccine mandates for air travel. And while this proposal has some intuitive pull, there are likely tradeoffs here that could result in more deaths overall as a by-product of increasing the cost and trouble of air travel, incentivizing travelers to choose another form of travel: driving. And since driving is more dangerous, flight vaccine mandates would (likely) backfire.
When increasing the cost of a good or service, the substitution effect is salient. A change in the price of a good or service affects the consumption of that good or service and that of comparable goods and services. A flight vaccine mandate would increase the cost of flying, at the margin, for many: it requires time and effort,
Cryptocurrency: Integrity Destroyer or Policy Scapegoat?
2023-11-17
Cryptocurrency is failing. Or so it seems.
Last week, the arrest of Su Zhu, cofounder of failed crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, brought to light the integrity issues which have plagued the crypto landscape. Along with cofounder Kyle Davies, the fund faced $3.5 billion of creditor’s claim, making its collapse one of the largest hedge-fund collapses of all time.
Zhu’s arrest came from a long line of incidents. The JPEX scandal, the 2022 crypto crisis, and perhaps most infamously FTX’s downfall have elicited criticisms from prominent financial experts and created a sense of apprehension in the general public. A recent poll found that 75 percent of Americans who have heard of crypto are not confident in its safety and reliability.
To combat deteriorating trends, policymakers around the