Tuesday Assorted Links
WNBA negotiations, MBA tuition, job market confidence, commercial spaceflight, and graduate degree returns
Hi y’all! Here are five stories from this week that contained some neat applications of economic principles or are related to teaching:
WNBA players had an ace up their sleeve in pay negotiations: a Nobel Laureate [The Wall Street Journal | MSN]
Average MBA tuition has grown ~11% over the last four years as business schools face higher operating costs [Poets & Quants]
Confidence in the job market has sunk in the last few years, with only 28% of workers at the end of 2025 saying that now is a good time to find a quality job [Gallup]
Virgin Galactic is set to resume commercial spaceflights following a two-year hiatus, with tickets starting at $750,000 [Gizmodo]
Graduate degrees in medicine, law, and pharmacy have high returns on investment, but secondary degrees in fields including social work and psychology can actually yield negative returns [Inside Higher Ed]
President Trump said the US can’t afford to fund daycare because it’s fighting wars, and accidentally restated one of the oldest ideas in economics. This week, we trace the “guns and butter” trade-off from Nazi Germany to LBJ’s Great Society to the current Iran spending debate, and break down the one graph that explains why this choice never goes away.
Guns and Butter: The Oldest Trade-Off in Economics Is Back
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Im surprised about the social work one. That means that the industry may need to ask if a degree is required. The field has a definite shortage but the earnings are so low.