The Best of 2022
It's been a big year for Monday Morning Economist, and that's because of great support from subscribers like you!
As the year comes to a close, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the past year and highlight some of our top posts from the past year. It’s been a really big year for this newsletter and I’m so proud of everything that has happened! At the start of the year, there were just over 500 subscribers; today we’re more than double that number with nearly 1,200! Most of that growth has come from readers like you sharing your favorite posts with your friends, family, and students. Thank you!
Even though there is a paid supporters option, please know that the primary version of the newsletter will always be free so that you can share these posts with anyone you think would enjoy them.
Top Posts in 2022
When I look back at my list of topics for the year, it’s crazy to see the variety of things we talked about. If you’ve been here the whole year, you learned topics as varied as Elvis weddings, fighting homelessness in Houston, and governors suspending the gas tax. Those were just a few of my favorite stories and the ones I really enjoyed writing.
Here were the top 10 posts based on page views:
A fun look at the pumpkin spice latte trend.
Spending billions on the World Cup isn’t a good investment.
Artificial intelligence can be good for workers and consumers.
A single motel room in Evansville, Indiana was 19% more expensive than the other rooms.
There are a lot of great examples of economics during Halloween.
Ticketmaster is so bad partly because they have monopoly and monopsony power.
When The New York Times bought Wordle, it showed how easily something could become excludable.
There are fewer college students enrolled this year, but why?
You can learn a lot about economics by watching Disney movies.
Do you have a favorite story that didn’t crack the top 10 list? Let me know in the comments:
Monday Morning Economist in the News
The other big change over the past year has been media exposure. Most of that came in September as I covered the pumpkin spice latte trend. Perhaps it’s no surprise that something that is so popular (and contentious?) ended up being shared so widely. The media exposure all started thanks to a media advisory written up by Virginia Tech.
After that came out, summaries and stories were posted on CNBC, Yahoo! Finance, a national association for convenience stores, and translated for audiences in India and Germany. The fun side of it all, however, came from a 3-minute segment on the DC Fox Morning Show:
While the pumpkin spice latte post was the “big news” story for the year, this newsletter also opened up a bunch of opportunities to talk about economics and core concepts with other outlets. I chatted with WTOP News about why it’s okay to buy lottery tickets even if you aren’t likely to win. A local ABC affiliate and The National Desk ran an article about the recent tech layoffs. I got a very small line in CNN Business about Black Friday shopping and how it would impact malls. All in all, it was a fun year!
So What?
I started this newsletter 2 years ago with one main goal in mind: I want to increase economic literacy across the country. I think the best way to do that is by connecting real-world events to economic concepts and showing people that knowing a little bit of economics can help explain a lot of what we see and experience around us.
You can help expand this message by doing two things. First, consider giving a gift subscription to someone you know or donating a subscription. Paid subscriptions support the website and give readers a direct connection to me. Special posts like this are sent to paid subscribers first and then sent to everyone else the next day. An added perk is that there are no supply chain slow-downs involved!
The second thing you can do is share this newsletter on your social media profiles or through emails with friends and family. Word of mouth, especially from a trusted source, helps this product grow each week. A simple post on Facebook or Twitter that says how much you enjoy reading the Monday Morning Economist, with a link to sign up, would mean a lot:
What’s Next?
I recently started a podcast with my good friend Matt Rousu called Economics Happy Hour. We chat for about 45 minutes to an hour on each episode on various economic concepts and how people can apply those to their everyday lives. Again, it's another outlet where I want to spread economic literacy far and wide.
You can sign up for new releases on Substack below:
Beyond that, who knows? I’ll keep writing Monday Morning Economist each week and sharing interesting links with you all every Tuesday. I've been posting more frequently on Twitter and LinkedIn, but who knows how long those sites will last? If you have ideas or just want to check in, please drop a comment on Substack. I’d love to hear from you:
Congrats on a successful year. It’s been great watching you grow your reach and scale your impact. I remember asking you on my interview with you, how will you scale?