Tuesday's Assorted Links

.99¢ Pricing, Empty Downtown Districts, Nepotism, LEGO Sets, and Buyer's Remorse

The price of LEGO sets can vary tremendously based on where you’re located. Click to see the full-size image & check out Link #4 to learn more.

Hi, y’all! Here are 5 stories from the past week that I found really interesting:

1. What’s the difference between $2.99 and $3.00? A new paper argues that people perceive the difference to be about 22¢ [The Review of Economic Studies]

2. On any given week, office buildings in San Francisco are at about 40% percent of their pre-pandemic occupancy. What does this mean for downtown businesses that were built to serve these workers? [The New York Times]

3. New research finds that 29% of Americans work for a parent’s employer before turning 30, which is estimated to increase one’s initial earnings by 19%. [Working Paper | Washington Center for Equitable Growth summary]

4. The price of LEGO differs depending on the country where you shop [The Toy Zone]

5. Ever experienced buyer’s remorse? Of course, you have. But there are ways to prevent it [The New York Times]

Congratulations to Croatia for bringing home bronze medals after their impressive win against Morocco! Although France, unfortunately, fell short in their championship match against Argentina, earning silver is still a huge accomplishment. Despite their silver-medal finish, the French team looked particularly unhappy - why might that be the case?

Second Place: The First Loser

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Week 50 is over and I have checked in 67 books for the year. I knocked out a mix of fiction and nonfiction last week, but none of them really stood out as amazing books that I think you should read. They mostly were just okay. I recently started Technically Wrong by Sara Wachter-Boettcher and the introduction looks solid so far. The book focuses on the many oversights, biases, and ethical issues that are baked into the tech products we use every day.