Back in 2007, Popular Science reported on a fascinating study:

• In a study exotic dancers made $70 an hour in tips when they were at their most fertile.
• This was double the $35 an hour they made when they were menstruating – or at their least fertile.
• Researchers suggested that this was because women were more flirtatious at peak fertility.
• Those who took birth control averaged $37 an hour, and didn’t see variations in their wages.
• This led researchers to lament the thousands of dollars that strippers on birth control lost every year.
• The scientists also recommended that girls in the industry schedule more shifts around specific times in the calendar.

Read more here.

Source: Popular Science

Poor countries are usually encouraged to keep taxes low to attract business and drive up spending in the hopes of boosting growth. The Economist reported on a paper that indicated that this may lead to more corruption:

• Poor countries levy taxes equivalent to about 17% of GDP. In contrast the EU takes in 40% of GDP.
• The difference is often made up through foreign aid with Africa receiving $51 billion in 2012.
• The theory of loss aversion posits that people hate losing something they have more than they enjoy gaining something of equal value.
• Applied to economic development, it could lead to greater corruption in poor countries, since corrupt politicians are stealing foreign aid money rather than citizens’ hard earned taxes.
• If instead taxes were high and people saw their own money being wasted away, civic engagement may increase, and citizens may demand more accountability.

Read how this theory fared in a small scale experiment, and other details here.

Source: The Economist

Yesterday the Indian government announced its budget for the year. Ellen Barry took a look at what goes into it in the days leading up to its release:

• For 9 days and nights about 100 government workers proofread, print, and bind 10,000 copied of the budget document.
• The workers are put behind locked doors, sealed by wax, and have all communication devices confiscated.
• Food is bought in and has to be taste tested to ensure that there’s little chance of food poisoning.
• If somebody were to get sick, they would be moved to a government hospital where they would be monitored by an intelligence agent.
• The measures date back to the time of colonization when the British would control the budget lest leaks about tax policy lead to the hoarding or dumping of goods such as tea and spices.
• The measures are successful. The budget has never been leaked.

Read about why one man was granted permission to leave the room – and why he returned the next day – stories from those who have been through the process, and much more over here.

Source: The New York Times

Reuters reported that South Korean condom companies are cheering over a court ruling:

• South Korea’s highest court overturned a 1953 law that used to make adultery illegal.
• As a result shares in one condom company rose by 15%. Investors were so excited trading had to be suspended.
• 892 South Koreans were indicted on adultery charges in 2014.

Read more over here.

Source: Reuters

Japan has a few companies that have existed for over a thousand years. Joe Pinsker took a look at the secrets to their success:

• The oldest businesses are in industries that don’t go out of style: making food, shipping goods, and constructing buildings.
• The country is flexible about passing businesses down a generation. If a family felt that their own child wasn’t worthy enough to run the family business, they would “adopt” a more suitable heir.
• This explains why while in most of the world those adopted are usually children, in Japan 98% of adoptees are 25-30 year old men.
• For a long time Japanese banks were expected to help out all struggling companies. As a result, according to one estimate, between 1955 and 1990 less than a hundred companies went out of business.
• Things are changing though. In 2007 a 1,429 temple construction business ran out of money. Soon after a 533 year old company, and a 465 year old company went out of business.
• This is in part because a change in the law meant that it was difficult for struggling businesses to get help from banks.
• Younger Japanese consumers also care less about a company’s history.

Read about some of the older companies still operating in Japan, the 10 foot 17^th century scroll that traced a company’s owners, some fascinating statistics, and much more over here.

Source: The Atlantic

The United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals have cautiously been hailed a success with several being met ahead of target. Now the United Nations is working on a set of “Sustainable Development Goals” and one economist analyzed the goals that will likely lead to the most development:

• Air pollution kills 7 million people a year. Changing how people cook would save lives and generate $10 for every dollar spent.
• Activists could also try to upgrade people to more high tech stoves that generate less smoke but that would create only $2 of value for every dollar spent.
• The most beneficial policy would be to reduce barriers to trade. According to one estimate this would generate $3,426 for developing countries, for every $1 spent.
• Other ideas that would generate high returns per dollar include providing reproductive-health services ($120), increasing nursery school enrollment ($33), and broadband penetration ($17).
• Some argue that the UN should focus on “data for development” but the act of monitoring is expensive and will take away the money available for actual development.

Read what this methodology has to say about the return on combating climate change, what other economists think, and much more over here.

Source: The Economist

In the North East of the United States and freezing? Matthew Yglesias has, what many will consider, cold words of comfort. Cold days are better than hot days for the economy:

• Temperatures above 15 degrees Celsius reduce America’s economic productivity.
• This effect is only seen on weekdays, where a temperature above 30 degrees Celsius is expected to cost a country $20 per person.
• This is due to the heat’s effect on agriculture and because employees just don’t seem to like working when it’s warm out – even with air conditioning.
• If America could control the weather and optimize it for economic development then income growth could be boosted by 1.7% a year.
• This could explain why countries in the colder north – such as many European ones – are richer than countries in the warmer south.
• This also has implications for what climate change could do to economic growth.

See some charts, read additional details, and find more over here.

Source: Vox

Clive Thompson took a look at photocopiers and what they may tell us about the future:

• Crude attempts to create copies of documents before the advent of the copier included using a runny ink to write something and then pressing another page on top of it to transfer some of the ink.
• Companies used to have routing slips on important letters with a record of who had seen it and who it had to go to next.
• When Xerox rolled out the first mainstream commercial copier machines in 1959 some companies removed doors so that they had the space to install them.
• The machines were a hit and the number of photocopies jumped to 14 billion a year.
• They affected international politics. America’s Pentagon Papers were leaked through a photocopier, and the Soviet Union soon began to tightly control them.
• Activists used the copiers at their companies to make flyers for social causes such as the fight to raise awareness for AIDS.
• The CEO of Xerox wasn’t sure that the popularity of his company’s machine was a good thing, concerned that employees were mostly copying “junk and nonsense”.

Read about some of the naughty things that people liked to photocopy, some of the more innovative things they were used for, and what they tell us about the future of 3D printing here.

Source: Smithsonian

Writing and selling a book is a lot like launching a business wrote The Economist in an article titled “authorpreneurship”:

• To get a book widely recognized in this day and age a bit of outside help is required. A celebrity endorsement from the likes of Oprah or Mark Zuckerberg can help.
• So can a Hollywood film deal or a Pulitzer Prize.
• For authors that can’t go for that kind of prestige, they can always try to get onto bestselling lists.
• Preorders for books are usually recorded as sales during the first week that the book is published, meaning that authors may spend months drumming up interest and collecting pre-orders before the book is released or even written.
• Smart authors can look to release their books in months when few others are released to limit the amount of competition.
• But getting a book popular is just the first step and isn’t always that lucrative. The real money comes from the speaking engagements that a successful book can lead to.
• In this way authors, like musicians, no longer make their money from their main product. Rather they release these to drum up interest, then cash in through public performances.

Read why this is a problem for budding writers who want nothing more than to stay at home and write, what readers want, what this means for the book industry, and other ways to ensure that your book is successful over here.

Source: The Economist