Economists agree: the age of the bank run – when millions of people withdraw their money from their bank accounts, throwing the financial system into jeopardy – has come to an end. However a different type of bank-run might dominate the 21^st century. Tyler Cowen writes:

• The shadow banking system which involves sophisticated financial products has become larger than the traditional commercial banking system.
• The money that individuals save in their bank accounts is insured by the government, leading to the end of commercial bank runs.
• However money in the shadow banking system is not insured and not risk free. Potential crises can become actual crises when investors pull their money out of the shadow banking system on short notice.
• Dealing with such shadow bank runs is complicated and has far-reaching consequences. The Eurozone is currently struggling with these issues.

To read more about the unappealing steps that countries can take to mitigate the effects of shadow bank runs, why this will lead to a “risky quest for yield”, and what the European Central Bank has been doing about it, click here.

Source: The New York Times

Via: Marginal Revolution

James Surowiecki reports on research that suggests that retail chains that hire more workers and spend more money training them are more successful than those who don’t. Highlights include:

• Every dollar spent on additional workers and training can lead to an extra $28 in sales.
• Having more sales staff rectifies the problem of the “phantom stock-out” – this is when the store has the product but the customer is unable to find it.
• Companies that drastically reduce payroll costs don’t do well. Circuit City fired 3,000 employees, and sales dropped as the new inexperienced hires couldn’t help customers find the products they were looking for. The company went bankrupt.
• Despite this research companies continue to find ways to cut payroll costs due to the way that managerial incentives are set up, and because the benefits are distributed over time.

To read more about how businesses have been outsourcing work to consumers, how this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, more details of the study, and what the experience of Home Depot demonstrates, click here.

Source: The New Yorker

Via: Freakonomics

Janet Morrissey took a look at the costs of insuring a Hollywood production. Highlights include:

• An insurance company called the Fireman’s Fund dominates the industry with up to 85% of major Hollywood productions being covered by the company, as well as the majority of reality shows and top Billboard music artists.
• Insurance can cost up to 4% of the movie’s total production cost.
• The company insures against the risk of injuries or illness to lead characters. This can cost up to $250,000 a day.
• Even movies with Lindsay Lohan can be insured – at a price.

To read more about how a bear affected the insurance for The Hunger Games series, the most expensive claim that a movie production has made, and what Robert Downey Jr. tells us about the industry, click here.

Source: The New York Times

Via: Marginal Revolution

At the National University of Singapore Coca-Cola is trying a marketing technique with a twist:

• Coca-Cola has installed a vending machine that dispenses free Coke.
• The twist? You have to hug the machine – by putting your arms around it and squeezing its sides – to get the drink.
• The physical interaction with the machine is likely to create a stronger memory in the minds of consumers, making it an effective marketing campaign.

To read about why it doesn’t matter that public signs of affection are discouraged in Singapore, who created the campaign, and how this all relates to Camel cigarettes, click here.

Source: Forbes

Via: Marginal Revolution

What do you get if you pay close to half a million dollars for a customized van? Jason Torchinsky reports:

• The $400,000 “JetVans” are customized Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans.
• They are named JetVans because their interiors are inspired by both the luxury of and the effective way that private jets use limited space.
• Each van is customized for the buyer. Possible amenities include treadmills, widescreen TVs, and various desks and compartments that disappear into the vehicle.
• The vans seat 7.

To read more about what you get for your money, how the lighting is carefully calibrated, and where you can buy your own, click here.

Centives would like to thank reader Todd Proebsting for pointing out our incorrect use of the word ‘myriad’ in the original version of this article.

Source: Jalopnik

Scott Jaschik reports on a study done on purchasing-power adjusted salaries for professors around the world. Highlights include:

• Canada offers the highest pay. The United States ranks fifth behind Italy, South Africa, and India.
• Both India and China have tried desperately to attract the best professors but when it comes to professor salaries India easily beats China. Chinese universities pay high wages to ‘superstar’ expat professors, but pay low amounts to most other faculty. Indian universities do not engage in this practice, maintaining a relatively equal distribution of income among faculty.
• The income disparity between entry-level and senior professors was lowest in Norway and highest in China.
• The study did not control for things such as tax – something that Saudi Arabian professors do not have to pay. Nor did it take into account private universities.

To read more about the biases introduced by the things that the study didn’t account for, a full table that shows how each of the 28 countries analyzed fared, and how professors relate to 1 percenters across all countries click here.

Source: Inside Higher Ed

Via: Marginal Revolution

Sophie Roell sat down with Chris Livaccari and discussed Chinese language and literature with him. Highlights include:

• Students in the west who learn Chinese are misled about what it’s like to live in China. Dragons and the colour red are not as prominent as the textbooks suggest.
• There are around 150,000 students in the United States learning Chinese, and the number is growing exponentially.
• Students are learning Chinese because they believe it will improve their career prospects. A similar movement arose in the early 90s with students aggressively learning Japanese.
• What we think of as Chinese – Mandarin – is actually an artificial construct that mashes together several different languages so that people from different regions in China could speak with one another. No one speaks true Mandarin as their native tongue.

To read more about why China faces challenges in becoming a global language, the Chinese author who wasn’t sure if he was a man dreaming that he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming that he was a man, and who the Chinese equivalents of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are click here.

Source: The Browser

Via: Salon

The ‘mancession’ – the empirical finding that the recent recession has caused far more males to be laid off than females – has become common knowledge. What has received less attention, yet is of similar magnitude, is the difference in unemployment rates between married and unmarried women writes Casey B. Mulligan in a two-part post. Highlights include:

• The ‘mancession’ can be explained through demand side effects. During the mancession people cut back on their demand for goods from industries that disproportionately employ men such as manufacturing and housing. In contrast, people’s demand for things disproportionately produced by women such as healthcare and education, stayed about the same.
• What isn’t as easily explained is that unmarried women lost more jobs than married women.
• One explanation is that married women began to find jobs after their spouses lost theirs creating an added worker effect.
• Another explanation is that safety net programs such as Medicaid and food stamps favour single-earner households, meaning that married women who are ineligible for such programs have more of an incentive to find work.

To read about how discrimination might play a role, how that discrimination is opposite to that observed during the Great Depression, and how the length of unemployment varies between married and unmarried women, click here and here.

Source: The New York Times