Everywhere you look people are posting about their latest Avocado based food. Emine Sander and Martin Morales took a look at how the Avocado managed to establish its dominance:

• People used to be disappointed by avocados. Thinking it was a pear they would bite into it and be confused by its mushy bland taste.
• It didn’t help that it was known as the “alligator pear” or ahuacate which translated to ‘testicle’.
• Then in the 20^th century farmers came together and decided to adopt the name “avocado” to make it more marketable to the world.
• Retailers have also done a better job of figuring out how to use ethylene gas to ripen it by the time it’s sold. In the past consumers would have to wait several days for it to ripen at home.
• In 1995 South African farmers hired a British PR firm to help sell avocados and growth soared.
• Initial marketing campaigns focused on basic things like how people should eat avocados – slice them open rather than bite into them.
• Then the focus of the campaign shifted to the health benefits. It was called a “super food,” although that’s largely a meaningless term that can (and has) been applied to almost every vegetable.
• There was a bit of a backlash when consumers realized how fatty avocados are – a single one can have 400 calories and 40g of fat.
• However, consumers were told that there are good and bad kinds of fat – and that avocados were composed mostly of the good kind.
• Due to a poor growing season supplies are contracting, and coupled with a 30% increase in demand in the last year alone, prices are expected to soar.

Read more about its history over here.

Source: The Guardian

Feeding America accepts donations from food manufacturers and operated food banks across the United States to feed the poor. Alex Teytelboym wrote about how it benefited from a shot of Chicago economics:

• Feeding America used to treat all food as the same. A pound of chicken was the same as a pound of French Fries.
• It also prioritized the food banks it sent the food too.
• The organization would ask its food banks, in order of priority if they wanted the food that they had. If a food bank said no, then its priority was lowered and it wouldn’t be offered food as often in the future.
• This meant that food banks were afraid of saying no to a delivery of food. So they would always say yes – even if they didn’t need the food, meaning that a lot of food went to waste.
• An eBay style auction system was designed to make things more efficient.
• Food banks were given daily online credits based on the size and characteristics of the population they served.
• They could use these credits to bid on food deliveries, allowing the food banks to decide what kinds of food they would receive.
• Banks weren’t penalized for failing to use their credits which meant that there was far less wastage.
• For food banks that have an unexpected surge in demand a system of loans was also implemented so that they could effectively serve their populace.

Read more about the system, the economists that helped design it, and what this says about welfare economics more generally over here.

Source: The Week

Via: Marginal Revolution

Want to know how the markets will move? Pay attention to women’s hemlines writes Jo Ellison.

• The more that women’s legs are covered, the worse an economy seems to do.
• One reason could be that longer dresses are more versatile – they can be worn at work, casually, and can even be worn as beachwear making them cost effective.
• Moreover, they work with flats and no one wants to deal with the stress of high heels during troubled economic times.
• And long skirts mean less mental space occupied by worries about shaved legs and knobby knees.
• Academic studies indicate that there’s a three year time lag between the lengthening of skirts and an economic crisis.
• Somewhat alarming then that maxi dresses are all the rage this year.

Read the full theory here.

Source: Financial Times

Via: Slate

The Economist looked at the rise of plastic surgery in Iran and other countries:

• Nose jobs are particularly popular among women in the Iran – partly because the face is the one thing that’s visible when women wear the mandatory hijab.
• Banks in some other Islamic countries such as Lebanon offer loans so that people can get the surgeries done.
• The loans help fund what can be an expensive procedure. In Iran it can cost $2,500 to have a nose job done – in a country where GDP per capita is $5,000.
• But the surgery costs twice that in the United States. As Iran rejoins the international world order, increasing numbers of foreigners may start visiting the country for its plastic surgeons.

Read more here.

Source: The Economist

There are cruise ships and there are cargo ships. Angus Whitley and Kyunghee Park wrote about the weird practice of the two overlapping:

• As the global economy slows freight prices have fallen.
• Cargo ships have taken to selling living space to paying passengers.
• Unlike in a proper cruise ship there are no fancy amenities, no internet, and no wait staff. Passengers are expected to keep their own rooms clean.
• Passengers do get to talk to the captain and crew whenever they can find them and can enjoy the solitude of the open seas.
• Trips can last as long as 110 nonstop days from Europe to Asia.
• Passengers pay about $115 a day for the room as well as meals with the crew.
• Plan to book in advance. Demand outstrips supply and there’s a several months long waiting list.

Read about the experience, the type of people who go for the deal, and other details here.

Source: Bloomberg

Via: Marginal Revolution

Shoa L. Clarke wrote about the experience of rich patients:

• At one hospital elite patients are given red blanket to signify their status. There are no explicit instructions on how they should be treated, but all the staff know what a red blanket means.
• Such patients are offered penthouse patient suites with gourmet food, luxury linens, and personal business centers.
• A survey of emergency departments indicates that elite patients are likely to get quicker treatment than regular ones.
• Yet patient satisfaction is correlated with negative outcomes – meaning that all this coddling may be bad for the rich.
• The reason seems to be that doctors are likely to order too many tests and prescribe too many treatments to ensure that top patients feel satisfied, ultimately hurting the patients’ diagnosis and recovery.

Read the full article here.

Centives has previously covered the amenities that the super-rich receive at hospitals. You can read about that here.

Source: The New York Times

Longform journalism site Grantland is shutting down. A look back at some of the site’s more interesting articles led to this 2012 gem by Kevin Grier and Tyler Cowen on how a country can go about increasing its share of medals:

• Olympic medals are unequally distributed. 65% of gold medals are won by 5% of the countries that participate.
• To win medals a country needs to increase its population. More people means more athletes to choose from.
• Countries could also import top athletes from other countries and quickly give them citizenship.
• In rare occasions exporting athletes can also help increase medals. Any country interested in winning gold medals in basketball might want their athletes to play in the NBA for a while.
• More money helps. It leads to more sporting infrastructure and education.
• Hosting the Olympics boosts medal chances, because in preparation for hosting, countries invest more in their athletes.
• This is also why countries do particularly well in the Olympics event four years before they are scheduled to host, as they already know by then that they will be hosting and have begun to invest in their sportspeople more.
• Countries benefit from focusing on their comparative advantages. Countries with long shorelines should focus on boating events, while those with high altitudes can hope for running medals.
• Specific sports can be strategically targeted. Taekwondo, which awards four medals per weight class, is a better bet than Basketball, which awards just one to an entire team.

The full article has some musings about the Olympic futures of China and India and has other interesting details. Read it here.

Source: Grantland

Matthew Shaer wrote about Adidas’ efforts to overthrow Nike’s dominant market position:

• Sneakers have gone from being casual footwear to several hundred-dollar fashion statements worn to weddings and Church.
• Nike has dominated. It has 62% of the market – compared with Adidas’ 5%.
• In fact, just one line of Nike’s shoes, the Jordans, has 20 times more market share than Adidas’ entire basketball selection.
• The domination is driven by an $8 billion endorsement budget that has led to the company sponsoring pretty much every major sports star in the United States.
• Adidas is trying to make a comeback. It can’t match Nike’s endorsement budget but instead of signing the biggest athletes it’s looking to sign younger, edgier athletes, who are blurring the lines between sportspeople and fashion models.
• It is doing so in part by giving shoe designers more freedom. Kanye West recently moved his line of shoes from Nike to Adidas due to his concerns about creative freedom.
• The 9,000 Kanye West shoes that went onto debut under Adidas retailed for $350…and were being resold for up to $5,000.

Read more about Adidas’ efforts to poach Nike’s employees, the executives at Adidas that are leading the charge, and what Nike thinks about all of this here.

Source: GQ

Joel Kurth wrote about why people in Detroit are hoping to attract squatters:

• When a community finds that a neighbour has left their house, they’ll seek to recruit a squatter to take their place.
• Not only do abandoned houses lead to lower neighbourhood property values, it’s possible that they could be burned down as arson has become a form of entertainment in crisis stricken Detroit.
• Another popular strategy is to place beehives on residential properties to dissuade troublemakers.
• Finding the right squatter is an art – you don’t want, for example, a drug dealer to move in. The best way to find a good squatter is to tap into the existing squatter network and find out if they know anybody looking for a house.

Read more here.

Source: The Detroit News

Via: Marginal Revolution

The Economist wrote about an atypical business:

• Many in Sri Lanka believe that names can shape destinies.
• Therefore, when a baby is born, or a business launched, an increasing number of Sri Lankans are going to “naming consultants” that provide guidance on the names to choose.
• At one such consultancy clients have to take a number and wait until they are called up. The service costs 500 rupees – about $3.56.
• The practice is so popular that in 1992 the President was told the country needed to change its name to “Shri Lanka” for good fortune. He went onto be assassinated and the country quietly changed its name back.
• The previous Sri Lankan President named an airline after himself so that his name would fly high in the skies. He was subsequently booted out of office in a surprise election defeat.
• The airline bearing his name continues to fly high though so the naming consultant was not wrong per se.

Read more about the industry here.

Source: The Economist