Everything you wanted to know about the World Cup's sky-high ticket prices! www.wbur.org/news/2026/05...

One nice thing about my research is that if the facts and I can’t convince politicians to make the right choice, all that happens is we get a nice stadium at too high a taxpayer price. But Dachau… yikes!

I've been doing a ton on interviews on the upcoming World Cup, which looks like it will make a lot for FIFA but maybe not so much for everyone else. Here's one interview for Seattle's NPR station. www.kuow.org/stories/is-i...

To be fair, if there is one institution that really promotes individualism and independent thinking, it is the military.

Your reminder as to why KC voters aren't being allowed to vote on the Royals stadium plan. Elected representatives already know their constituents oppose it. But local leaders want it (and the perks that go with it), and they want taxpayers to pay for their luxury play palace.

Today Holy Cross is hosting the author Margaret Atwood for a talk. I’m not really a big fan of non-fiction, so I am skipping the lecture.

Anyone who says you can’t put a dollar value of intangibles has either not tried or doesn’t want to know what the real answer is is.

Remember when Sydney, Australia changed its mass transit pricing to “FREE” for the Women’s World Cup? Good times… www.nytimes.com/athletic/719...

Jobs report just came in at +178K, the best report of Trump's 2nd term. Biden averaged +329K Clinton averaged +242K Obama averaged +188K in his final 7 years (following the end of the Great Recession that was in full swing when he took office) Fox Business cheering a below average Dem report.

Not just any economist! @victor-matheson.bsky.social

Yesterday was the end of the quarter for 401k plans. How much of yesterday’s Iran “peace” announcement was done just to try to mitigate a bit of the stock market damage people will see on their quarterly statements in the next couple of days before the fall starts again?

Let's be very clear - there is not an ounce of difference between sports betting done through a sportsbook like DraftKings or FanDuel and sports betting done through a prediction market like Kalshi. It is pure fiction to believe otherwise. www.marketplace.org/story/2026/0...

Decatur, GA claims it will benefit to the tune of $142M from World Cup games in Atlanta. Let's just say I would take the under on that bet. www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/fifa-wo...

In recognition of Paul Ehrlich's death, my 2010 paper on his famous bet with Julian Simon. While Simon won the bet finding real resource prices fell suggesting scarcity isn't a problem, over most time periods in last 100 years, Ehrlich would have won the bet. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Well to be fair Trump look some tentative first steps yesterday towards screwing over college athletes, so it’s not all just bad economy and war.

Oil up by $12 a barrel in less than 12 hours. Gas prices skyrocketing. Almost 100,000 jobs lost last month. Another war in the Middle East. Are we great again yet?

Trump said he would “solve all of the problems in the room.” The only reason that is even remotely possible is that there were no actual college athletes in the room. A lot easier to “solve” a labor-management dispute when labor isn’t in the room. www.espn.com/college-spor...

In Ireland with a group of 50 Holy Cross students. A particular circumstance led to a “USA! USA!” chant starting which immediately died out and after a few confused seconds restarted with a “Worcester! Worcester!” chant.

And in related news, I am now estimating that every World Cup match has an economic impact of $1.9 gagillion dollars.

Truly a great honor!

Just got back from a vacation in Tanzania. Completely amazing. Like I think I have seen dairy farms that had lower concentrations of large animals than the Serengeti. (Now if I could only get Toto's "Africa" out of my brain, I could get some work done!)

If only there were only anything we could do with tax policy that would reduce the number of people retiring with 12 homes, but I just can't think of anything that might work! www.comicsands.com/bessent-reti...

I see that Trump now wants to protect credit users by capping interest rates. In fact, I think there should be some some of government bureau that protects consumers' finances. But what would we even call such a agency?

Headed to Istanbul and Tanzania in the next few weeks. More than usual I am making sure that none of my clothing clearly identifies me as an American. I’m just happy I am not trying to visit Denmark any time soon.

Yup, nothing says “merit” like denying visas to the Ethiopians for the World cross-country championships. On the bright side, at least the US immigration service didn’t shoot these athletes. www.nytimes.com/athletic/695...

I have always liked everyone. I’m literally the black lab of humans. But this MN shit is fucking evil and is making even me start to hate every one of my fellow Americans who has made this possible.

This is absurd. There's no way you can devote $1.8 BILLION in public money to a stadium and not cost Kansas taxpayers "one new cent." If it's true that we can costlessly pay for government projects with tax districts, then why don't we just fund everything that way? www.kctv5.com/2025/12/24/k...

“When you’re a tenant in a stadium, it’s not your true hub. Women deserve that. Just like men.” "Women deserve the same level of economic malpractice as men" may be the stupidest economic argument ever made for public funding of a stadium. www.fieldofschemes.com/2025/12/16/2...

So, having overseen dozens of ceremonial coin flips in my day, I will say it is actually strangely hard to do correctly if you haven't done it before. Most people screw it up. (And that, is probably the nicest post I will ever make regarding Trump.)

This is just so weird. Who tosses a coin like that? Typically presidents practice before doing the first pitch for baseball. Does this mean no one was willing to practice a coin toss with him? I’ve been holding that in, but I just had to get it out. Like, WTF? Whatever this means, it isn’t good.

Looks like the AEA still wants me as a member. Of course, I don’t know how honored I should really be. I mean, you would have to be a real jackass to be kicked out of the AEA, right?

How about keeping Stoops and directing $37.9 million more to buying better players. I bet you get better results than finding a new coach to lead your existing level of talent, and with the $100K you save, you can buy an extra economics professor for a year. www.cbssports.com/college-foot...

Look, I realize this this is an easy way to generate content for a company that doesn’t want to hire actual reporters, but this isn’t even newsworthy enough to post Bluesky let alone worthy of a real news organization.

Based on what I am reading here, Denver Mayor Mike Johnson may be in the running for the dumbest mayor of a major US city. Way to signal an absolute zero intent to negotiate a decent deal for Denver taxpayers. www.cbsnews.com/colorado/new...

Committee for Corporate Welfare - no oversight at all. Atlanta Ctee for Progress & MACC never saw a corporate handout they didn't shill for. Arthur Blank pockets $30M/yr of our hotel-motel tax & has 2 votes! Invest Atlanta board members rarely look critically at TAD cost-effectiveness. Just say No!

I just found an old midterm of mine from September 29, 1999. On that test I asked, "Should the U.S. Treasury abolish the penny?" Looks like I was 25 years ahead of my time. apnews.com/article/us-m...

I am sure this is just a misunderstanding. Who amongst us soccer referees hasn't accidentally placed 18,227 bets on soccer matches? www.theguardian.com/football/202...

I think 2 things here: 1. The chance that Trump forces FIFA to move games out of Boston or other blue cities is now 0%. 2. The winner of the prize is pre-ordained in order to get the answer in part 1. Just total corruption (and for once I am not talking about FIFA!) apnews.com/article/fifa...

Somehow I sound much more authoritative when translated into German! And yeah, the NBA gambling scandal is a big enough deal to get attention across the pond. open.spotify.com/episode/6qQs...

It will take more than a few bad headlines for sports leagues to turn away from the deluge of gambling money. I have to admit I feel a bit star-struck to be one of two experts quoted along with Michael Lewis of Moneyball and Liar's Poker fame. www.cnn.com/2025/10/25/b...

All I know is that it is a lot cheaper to hear me talk about ticket prices on NPR's Morning Edition today than it is to buy tickets to any sporting events nowadays. www.npr.org/2025/10/23/n...

Mamdani hasn’t been elected yet and he’s already driving criminals out of New York.

I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to find out that the Worcester MiLB baseball stadium has not lived up to its economic expectations! www.telegram.com/story/news/l...

Happy to be featured on the latest episode of Freakonomics Radio discussing the crazy(???) idea of the NFL and NCAA merging and forming a promotion/relegation league. freakonomics.com/podcast/the-...

I am passing up a B-52s/Devo concert to attend this “Insights into Educational Inequality” better be as much a banger as “Whip It” or “Love Shack”!

Why is everyone buying lottery tickets? I will tell you on @marketplace.org! www.marketplace.org/story/2025/0...

I don't know why anyone would trust a (reverse)carpetbagger like you to know anything about the Worcester sports market. It's just too bad there aren't any decent sports economists in Worcester who could have given the city decent advice about the stadium.

Here's a good article showing how far Trump has split MAGA and traditional business Republicans. AEI, a wildly conservative traditional thinktank, is talking about how to improve electric cars. Trump is talking about how to eliminate them. www.aei.org/research-pro...

But to be fair, Steve Ballmer living out his midlife crisis by buying a sports team with his billions is probably better than Elon Musk living out his midlife crisis by destroying democracy.