Economics & Markets

Swapping the types of crops farmers plant is twice as effective at saving groundwater as buying high-tech irrigation gear.

As countries get richer and better run, the number of women choosing STEM degrees actually starts to drop.

Putting people from opposite political parties on the same corporate audit committee actually makes the company's math more honest.

Companies tend to buy the crappiest carbon offsets when the projects are located right near their own headquarters.

Patent applications are four times longer than they used to be just because word processors make it so easy to copy-paste filler text.

Despite what everyone in the neighborhood says, building a giant data center nearby has zero impact on how much your house is worth.

Legalizing sports betting has absolutely no impact on state lottery sales.

If you give an AI agent a little bit of 'social' personality, humans are way more likely to forgive it when it screws up.

The 1970s divorce boom might have been caused by a sudden surplus of young women rather than a shift in morals.

Making college cheaper can actually backfire and make students study less for their entrance exams.

Racial inequality in jail isn't just about over-policing—it’s driven just as much by judges giving white people 'selective mercy.'

Corrupt government agencies don't just accidentally hire bad auditors—they strategically pick the ones with the worst reputations to help hide their crimes.

Swapping social media for ChatGPT for two months actually gives your memory and critical thinking a massive boost.

Generative AI is actually a huge win for experienced workers, making them look even better compared to the younger tech-savvy crowd.

Online stores actually need those cranky customers who leave bad reviews to keep the whole rating system from becoming a joke.

Investors are way more likely to buy a stock if some totally unrelated company with the same price happens to be doing well.

Forget the 'nesting' myth—people actually spend way less money while they’re pregnant and only start splurging after the baby shows up.

A popular TV show about headhunters actually caused real-world stock market chaos for real recruiting companies.

In cutthroat markets, just letting the players talk to each other fixes waste better than changing the prize money.

A person’s language starts shifting in specific 'mathematical' ways—like a shrinking sense of time—right before a mental health crisis hits.

All these non-binding 'AI ethics' promises are making the technology more dangerous because nobody takes the warnings seriously anymore.

A new legal theory argues that since consenting to sex isn't consenting to being a parent, the law should let people 'opt out' of child support.

Graders for China’s big college entrance exam often ignore the rules to reward students who write essays with 'moral correctness.'

AI data centers can pay 100 times more for electricity than other industries and still walk away with a profit.

Public companies are basically 'day trading' their own stock to boost their market value by about 1% every year.

The Great Crash of 1929 wasn't a bubble or a loss of faith—it was caused by a massive pile-up of unsold stuff in warehouses.

The best way to pay back victims of price-fixing is to let the first criminal who snitches lead the lawsuit against his old buddies.

Just being mentioned in the news—even for something good—triggers a 'spotlight tax' where auditors start charging you way more.

About half of a brand's dominance comes from secret, long-term deals with grocery stores, not because people actually like the product more.

When banks fight harder for corporate clients, businesses actually cut their R&D spending just to make their profits look better on paper.

When a study finds that a policy had 'no effect,' it might actually be a sign that the market is so competitive it's become immune to outside help.

Laws meant to stop people from bullying journalists actually end up making factory floors safer for workers.

Power plant owners are blocking new battery companies from the market just by messing with prices to make storage look unprofitable.

Extreme global rivalries are actually making international groups more active and tougher, instead of tearing them apart.

Giving more people health insurance sounds great, but it hasn't actually improved their mental health at all.

Drivers who don't stop at crosswalks kill more people than drunk drivers do, but they barely get more than a slap on the wrist.

When you hear news about the government spending more on the military, it actually makes it cheaper for regular companies to borrow money.

The legal test for design patents is psychologically rigged to help people get away with ripping off designs.

A lot of 'underperforming' investment strategies are actually more efficient than the market if you factor in how much time you're actually at risk.

Once you actually start learning a new skill, you get worse at predicting how much more you’re going to learn in the future.

Individual investors will gamble like crazy when they’re falling behind their friends, but they don't play it safe when they’re winning.

Every single hectare of coca grown in Colombia ends up costing about $48,000 in overdose deaths here in the States.

Adding a 'public option' into the workers' comp market actually made the market more crowded and drove prices up.

The way the Champions League is set up is mathematically killing the competition in local soccer leagues.

Auditing just one company at random makes other firms behave better, simply because they use the same broker.

That bloodstain analysis you see on TV? It has error rates as high as 32% and zero actual science to back it up.

Donors will stop giving money to a charity if it looks too profitable, even if that profit means they're actually running things well.

Bitcoin crashes don't actually behave like bubbles bursting—they’re more like balloons slowly leaking air.

Government workers in developing countries sometimes lean into 'Third World' stereotypes just to explain away their own bad work.

Investment banks are lowballing IPOs so badly that companies now have to hire a second set of 'watchdog' advisers just to keep an eye on them.