Tuesday's Assorted Links
College majors, artificial intelligence, government spending, financial literacy, and life expectancy
Hi y’all! Here are five stories from this week that contained some neat applications of economic principles or are related to teaching:
Americans evaluate 40 college majors on three dimensions: earnings potential, personal interest, and well-roundedness [YouGov]
Goldman Sachs says generative A.I. could impact 300 million jobs [CNBC]
Americans believe the government should cut spending, but also believe it should spend more on the things it spends the most on already [Associated Press]
Americans lost an average of $1,819 last year due to financial errors [Yahoo! Finance | Original Report]
US life expectancy is in freefall as the young and the poor bear the brunt of struggles for shared prosperity [Financial Times| Twitter Summary]
Tesla Insurance will raise insurance rates for night driving in some states based on a safety score that impacts policyholders' premiums. This increase in rates for late-night driving illustrates statistical discrimination, where higher premiums are charged to high-risk groups to cover claims costs and maintain profitability. Although night driving is just one component of the safety score, it can still have a significant impact on a policyholder's insurance premium.
Given the topic of today’s banner photo, it seems only appropriate to recommend Anne Case and Angus Deaton’s book “Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism.” The authors examine the rising mortality rates among middle-aged white Americans due to "deaths of despair" such as suicide, drug overdose, and alcohol-related liver disease.
They attribute these deaths to the failure of capitalism to deliver the promised benefits to the working class and suggest that the solution lies in reforming the economic and social policies that have led to this crisis. The authors suggest that policies that focus solely on economic growth, such as tax cuts and deregulation, will not solve the problem and that a more holistic approach is needed.