Tuesday's Assorted Links
IKEA vouchers, pumpkin price premium, toxic workplaces, Canadian tariffs, and campus seniors
Hi y’all! Here are five stories from this week that contained some neat applications of economic principles or are related to teaching:
IKEA has designed a tiny smartphone bed that grants in-store vouchers for UAE users if they leave their phones off for 7 hours every night for a week [The Verge]
Pumpkin-flavored products cost around 8.4% more on average than their non-pumpkin counterparts [Lending Tree]
80% of US employees say their workplace is toxic [Monster]
Trump raises tariffs on Canada 10% after Reagan ad airs during World Series [ABC News]
At Arizona State University, residents pay about $500,000 in entrance fees to live on campus and take classes alongside undergraduates [The New York Times]
When Amazon Web Services went down last week, so did Canvas. Millions of students suddenly found themselves with a day off from college. Their reaction to the outage revealed how students really view higher education: as part investment, part signal, and part experience. It turned an internet failure into a small but perfect lesson in the economics of college.
When Canvas Crashed and Students Cheered
On Monday afternoon, college students took to TikTok for an urgent message for Amazon: Take your time fixing Canvas.
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Define "toxic". The article doesn't. These days, I fear it's merely a synonym for "something I don't like."
The tiny bed is cute, though