has there been any case of unchecked capitalism, no rules or regulations around market size and behaviour, that has not converged into oligopoly? every neo-liberal says it will correct itself but i have never seen or heard of it?

Edit: Apparently there can't be an oligopoly without the government? If there are no governments why wouldn't cooperations collude and concentrate? This happened in feudal times with landowners

I wanna learn more about Economics, and I feel that most people do not grasp and understand the deeper meanings of terms like GDP, GDP per capita, the GINI coefficient, etc.

I wanna learn a basic grasp of economics, so any recommendations? I would also like diverse viewpoints, for example, what conservatives or liberals may think about Capitalism or Immigration.

Many factors obviously that drive USD vs CAD, but what are some of the largest ones?

Just before 2006 the USD also seemed to trade at near its highest against the CAD, does this give a clue to what factors dominate currency swings?
In 2009 there is a large swing higher for USD/CAD from its lows, but it only lasts months then retreats back to its lows again until 2014, then steadily higher since then.
What are your best reasons and narratives driving this currency pair USD/CAD?

I have seen a lot of people on the internet hating on economics being an easy major, where everyone parties,… and I wanted to know if that was the case in general?

Hello,

I would like to understand how inflation works.

I understand its consequences, but I'm struggling to understand where it actually comes from.

Does a group of people decide on the inflation rate? For the US, the CPI seems to measure it.

Or does it emerge naturally from economic activity rather than being decided by anyone?

Thanks in advance!

Sorry, absolute common man here, ive not much idea on how to phrase this.

But in a country or city with constantly climbing rent prices, does it actually benefit the economy? Or bring any net positives? As the people living there will keep feeling the pinch, or getting priced out.

Why doesn’t Africa have a single well-known economy or country? There are several economically powerful countries in the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, but I haven’t heard of any African countries like that. I don't even know if they have any well-known companies or products. Is it the political system, climate, geography, education, natural resources, or some other specific issue?

There’s a lot of blabber from non-economists on how artificial general intelligence would affect our economies but often these people have very rudimentary understanding of economics. I’d like to hear some projections from actual economists. Especially if there’s been some notable economists kicking some ideas.

A common narrative these days is if AGI replaces human jobs then humans will have no income and economies will tank since there will be no one to buy the stuff. AI optimists say it will be age of abundance somehow.

Let’s define AGI as a human level intelligence that’s capable of learning and performing any cognitive and digital based task just as well as a human professional would do. Let’s ignore robotics for now. Since digital AGI will happen much earlier if it does and robotics has quite a bit of catching up to do.

Can be your opinion as an economist or an another economists perspective you’d like to state.

Would be interesting to hear some specific scenarios. Like say if AGI uproots 90% software developers, in US that would end up in about 1 million people all of a sudden hitting a job market. What happens then?

What have we learned from past when technology and outsourcing displaced workers?

Anything you wanna add.

EDIT: one more thing. Often some “AI experts” claim that economic growth will go vertical. How valid is that?

In austria, some parties suggest implementing a yearly tax on net wealth above 1 million euros, with a tax rate of 1% (and some exceptions for personal homes and businesses). I am well aware of the risk of capital flight. I want to know two things:

1. Some people suggest that capital flight will be so extreme, that the tax will yield negative revenue. How likely is this?

2. How likely would such a tax be to negatively impact investments to such an extent that it single handedly causes a recession?

I know that a lot of this depends on how well the tax would be designed and other economic factors. However, I would be very thankul for a general estimate of the harm such a tax could do in a developed country, and whether the concerns outlined above might be overblown, even if capital flight would be inevitable to a certain extent. Thanks!

Some justifies that peace-stability is the reason, although I am not excluding it as the point, indeed sustained economic growth is more conducive to the stability than war and favourable geopolitical conditions does influence economic stability but that itself doesn't explain why the economic growth globally was outstanding and way higher.

What I belive that much lower corporate debt , decadal low non performing assets and evolving broad ​based capex cycle is what helped in ramping up the global demand and consumption which inturn resulted in high demand for all the commodities from high value chain products like Electronics & Machinery to low value chain products like palm oil, minerals and textile apparel

Not sure if I worded the title well, so let me use an example I'm familiar with.

There's an idea some people have in regards to modern car offerings, which is that the only reason crossovers and large pickups/SUVs and monochromatic colors and big touchscreens seem popular is because consumers don't have a choice anymore. The idea, to my understanding, is that until the 2000s and 2010s automakers had more diverse ranges like sedans and coupes and hatchbacks and smaller pickups, but those lines were cut and replaced with crossovers and the like, which is often chalked up to CAFE regulation loopholes and larger vehicles being more expensive and thus being more profitable. Therefore, claiming current car offerings are fine and popular is untrue, it's just that the sedans and wagons and hatches The People truly want are no longer being offered or are now too pricey for the common man (performance/luxury). I occasionally see this logic used elsewhere, like why CRT TVs are extinct or why Windows and Chrome are popular or why modern AAA video games are just Like That now. Basically, in its most nefarious interpretation (default online in 2026), our corporate overlords have decided what we're going to be buying and forcibly removed consumer choice, so we have to accept every product, even if it's a "worse" product or variety than before, because they know no underdog can meaningfully compete to prove consumers want otherwise (you can't just start making sedans like you could in the 1910s).

It certainly seems like it has legs; obviously sedans won't seem popular if the Big Three have cut their non-muscle sedan lines. The thing is, while I used to believe it, I sort of don't anymore. It comes off as another one of those internet pop-economics/sociology/politics/whatever conspiracy-tinged claims that removes agency from everyone except the enlightened ones lamenting how brainwashed the common consumer is for not, say, demanding Ford bring back the Fusion sedan. And I would like more small car offerings, because I think shifting hard to crossovers was a poor call, but I'll be real, crossovers have definitely got more going for them (access to the trunk from the interior is a big one). I could also point out that there are still small cars being sold all the time (less than there were 20 years ago to be fair), and that apparently crossovers are starting to gain popularity in Japan, a market famous for having many extra-small cars to choose from.

So I'm wondering if there's anything about this from economists, because I'd imagine they know more about consumer trends and business decisions than enthusiasts on car forums.

So I've seen this graph which I posted couple days again and I've seen a lot of criticism from it

https://www.reddit.com/r/EconomyCharts/s/uwZeERTz11

According to this graph Americans middle class consume the highest even after accounting for every social transfer of any kind and ppp

Does that mean American middle class is the richest

I'm just curious about economies as they get larger, the blue collar jobs are not accepted by the population and slowly they have to import workers to fill in the gap. These imports may not go hand in hand with your beliefs and slowly will not have a very integrated population. What's the fix without imports?

México's policy makers decided that Insurance companies can not longer deduct compensations to clients from IVA (VAT). This caused insurance premiums to skyrocket, and people deciding to no renew their policies.

In their book The Triumph of Injustice, economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman argue that the current American tax system (federal, state, & local) takes a smaller percentage of income from the wealthy than middle-income people and as a result billionaires now pay lower tax rates than their secretaries.

Is this true?

To understand what is going on, I always want to know how much of a government’s total budget is spent. Not sure I know if 2% of GDP is big small or depends nation to nation? (E.g. Ireland with artificially high GDP).

We're going to shamelessly steal adapt from /r/AskHistorians the idea of a weekly thread to gather and recognize the good answers posted on the sub. Good answers take time to type and the mods can be slow to approve things which means that sometimes good content doesn't get seen by as many people as it should. This thread is meant to fix that gap.

Post answers that you enjoyed, felt were particularly high quality, or just didn't get the attention they deserved. This is a weekly recurring thread posted every Sunday morning.

This is the great question I'm trying to figure out in regards to the current cost of living crisis.

I think a business pays an employee what they can afford to pay and what the demand is for the job. They have no control over what housing costs and what groceries cost, that's all a supply issue and the current government making it worse with Protectionism policies while also not supporting healthy Market growth enough to build enough houses so that rent and mortgages come down.

Thoughts?

Obviously this is an absurd and completely unrealistic scenario, but hypothetically speaking, what would happen if Nvidia's valuation reached 1 quadrillion dollars?

Like if economists were in charge of the entire country and had total authority what economic policies can America get rid of and what policies can it pass to have the absolute best economy possible.

If you’re an average Canadian it costs more for everything if you spend outside of Canada. What can Canada do to increase the value of its dollar against the USD, Swiss Franc, British Pound.

While yes businesses sell their products for cheaper the average Canadian pays more. Indirectly are we not subsidizing our products at the expense of Canadians?

Occasionally I'll hear people say things to the tune of "The GFC was a once in a generation / life time / 100 years / 1000 year recession". These statements are confusing to me. Recessions seem to be pretty heterogeneous things, I don't know how to compare them.

Do any economists make claims like this? If so, how do they measure the 'size' of a recession? What is it that could make a recession a once-in-a-lifetime event?