Last time we saw that mathematical tools allow us to identify congressional districts that may be gerrymandered. These congressional districts are oddly shaped, but what isn’t immediately clear is whether these shapes are that way for legitimate political purposes (eg AZ-02) or for legitimate boundary purposes (eg rivers, coastlines) or signs of true gerrymandering.... »

When a state gains population it may also gain a new congressional representative. Frequently this causes the state to redraw its congressional district boundaries. Since 2010 is a Census year, states that gain or lose a representative will be going through the redistricting process. Therefore this is a good time to look into gerrymandering. A... »

President Obama announced a 3 year freeze on the discretionary part of the federal budget. Many liberal economists (including Paul Krugman) decried this as a wrong step. In an economic downturn the government should be spending and not cutting back. I agree in theory, but the question is does the theory apply in this... »

Imagine for a moment that the following story is true: Someone very close to me has been experiencing an incredible run of bad luck. Every day for the past few years my friend (let’s call him Paul) gets mugged. The robbers punch him then take his money but they leave his wallet. He’s not hurt... »

This is the third and probably final article that examines the recent housing bubble. The previous 2 articles (here and here) are related in that they both examine data that shows a bubble is underway. The obvious piece of data to look at involves the price increase of the commodity in question (houses). Somewhat... »

Our recent economic primer has us re-thinking a previous housing bubble article. There was nothing wrong with the earlier article, but the graphs we used were not as dramatic as one that Yale economist Robert J. Shiller created back in 2006. The graph below was pulled from a New York Times article (in 2006)... »