I'm not an economist or financial expert. I work in marketing for a real estate brokerage, so a big part of what I do is pay attention to trends, consumer behavior, and things that could eventually affect the housing market.

I've been thinking about something for a while and wanted to hear what people who understand economics better than I do think about it.

What happens when AI allows companies to increase productivity and continue growing without hiring as many people?

The Federal Reserve's October 14 Beige Book caught my attention because it mentioned businesses in five districts reducing staffing through attrition, delaying hiring, or anticipating fewer jobs because of AI-related productivity gains.

Now the IMF is also discussing how AI could increase productivity while potentially widening economic inequality.

It makes me wonder whether we could eventually have an economy that looks healthy on paper, with growing GDP and strong corporate earnings, while everyday people are actually struggling to find well-paying jobs.

And here's where my real question comes in.

If inflation and economic growth remain strong, but employment opportunities weaken, could this make the Fed's interest-rate decisions more complicated?

From a housing perspective, even if mortgage rates eventually come down, that doesn't necessarily help people who no longer have the income or job security to qualify for a mortgage.

I know the Fed looks at more than just GDP and unemployment, and I'm not suggesting AI is already responsible for high interest rates.

I'm also not trying to make this political or predict some doomsday scenario. I'm genuinely just looking at trends and wondering how they might connect.

Could AI eventually change the relationship between productivity, employment, and interest rates enough that we need to rethink how we measure economic strength? Or am I missing something important?

I'd really love to hear different perspectives.

Federal Reserve Beige Book:

https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/beigebook202610-summary.htm

What I mean is, China is in God mode in shipbuilding, with more than 73 % new ship hull orders going to Chinese shipyards. China in three decades have emerged as global powerhouse in shipbuilding, in terms of all metrics, quality, quantity, speed, innovation, delivery on time, cost, whatever metric you choose.

But how much beneficial the dominance in this industry is for China, in terms of creating profit? Is the dominance a high value chain dominance? Or it is just an important sector to dominate in terms of Strategic and geopolitical calculation but not that important when generating profits?

Why I ask this question is , why Europe and all the developed nations , except SK really let the shipbuilding culture and industry of thier nation die altogether? Is it similar to like assembling Iphones, electronic products and manufacturing of Automotives, the real money lies in owning the propriety Rights and some high end manufacturing and not just dominating in volumes?

The sheer lack of apathy and urgency of other nations in trying to maintain and improve the shipbuilding industry of their nations is baffling to me? Is it simply not a high value chain venture that requires much attention to preserve, like something 2nm or high end chip manufacturing requires?

Can someone explain in terms of value chain so that I can get clarity that how just China and SK takes this seriously? Is it just like automotive manufacturing that giving manufacturing to third party source isn't really that noticable?

Public debt in developed countries increases every year. When I ask ChatGPT about it, I am told that, on average, public debt will reach 200% of GDP by around 2035, with Japan already having a much higher debt level. Then, by around 2075, Western countries will reach 300% of GDP.

But I have the impression that this will never stop, and that seems strange to me. Countries cannot borrow money indefinitely.

If I take a household as an example, if a family keeps accumulating debt, eventually it becomes unmanageable. The family will go bankrupt because it can no longer repay what it owes.

I feel that nobody is asking the fundamental question: how are these debts ever going to be repaid? We cannot keep increasing public debt forever. At some point, it has to come down.

This seems to me like a short-sighted approach in the long term. I get the impression that everyone is simply passing the buck, thinking that someone in the future will be forced to deal with the problem.

Why does nobody seem to be seriously worried about a problem that will eventually have to be addressed?

Why don't they put the unemployed youth to work building housing?

How AI can replace workers if big chunk of worker will be fired, wages will just drop until replacing human with AI stop became economically profitable? How it even possible?

This is probably a pretty basic question but it puzzles me. The most obvious explanation I can come up with is that people attach greater authority to the brand name, but overall it just feels like buying the cheaper generic drug is the obvious choice when there is a price discrepancy, which I would think would lead to equalization.

Douse Syria have any hope of developing into a stable or even advanced economy? I know that gulf state investment is now flowing in, but what douse their future holds assuming they stabilize as a country?

I've been studying demographics and population recently, and one of the more interesting discoveries I've made was the latest Russian census in 2021. Along with being held after COVID ended, the census was controversial due to claims of overcounting and over-inflating numbers.

These claims were largely done by Alexei Raksha, a former Rosstat worker who was fired and later labeled as a "foreign agent" by the Kremlin. Despite this, Raksha made several (claims) that the true population of Russia (excluding Crimea) is 140 million. This is a sharp contrast to the current prediction of 146 million (including Crimea) that Rosstat made, and several publishing agencies in the West (including YouTubers) have used Raksha as a reference to describe the demographic standing of Russia.

I've done some research into this, and found little evidence or calculations to support Raksha's claim that the census overinflated 5-5.5 million people. So if he did make such calculations, he hasn't actually published them (only spoke about his numbers). While I agree that problems in a census may exist, I'm not sure who exactly is right in the debate.

In your opinion, whose estimate should be considered more accurate? Rosstat's 146 million or Raksha's 140 million?

I'm struggling to think of a great way to ask this question in the way I want, but I'm just thinking like.

Let's say I have 100 employees with 1M profit. Well due to some sort of automation I'm able to produce the same amount with 50 less people thus generating let's say 1.5M profit.

If those 50 people say wanted to compete directly with my business and make their own using the same automation for similar/same output wouldn't that make sense and thus drive down costs if I didn't lower my prices? Assuming there's no additional demand? I feel like I did not ask this question super well but I'm definitely struggling to formulate the exact question.

Major cities attract workers and resources from across the country, including both skilled and low-wage workers. However, the benefits of their growth seem to flow mainly to nearby, often already developed regions.

Why don’t the regions that supply much of the workforce benefit as much? Should less-developed regions that continuously lose workers receive some form of compensation? Are there any studies or examples of fairer regional redistribution policies?

#RegionalInequality #LaborMigration #UrbanEconomics #EconomicGeography #SpatialJustice #RegionalDevelopment #FiscalRedistribution

my friend is taking a game theory class. for extra credit, everyone in the class (40 people) were asked to guess a number between 1-100. the person who guesses closest to ⅔ of the average gets their guess as extra percentage at the end of the year.

some friends and i came to the conclusion that the nash equilibrium here is 1.

the twist i added for fun that has us stumped is what if you only get the extra credit if you are the sole person to guess that number.

two scenarios:

1. any number which is guessed more than once is disqualified for selection (i.e., still included in the average, but you are no longer eligible for the extra credit).
2. if multiple people guess the number which is closest to the nash equilibrium, nobody gets the extra credit.

for each scenario, what number would you guess and why?

EDIT: assume only integers and no cooperation between people

Suppose North Korea converts to Democracy & Capitalism (Mixed Economy), half of NK with stronger socialist policies & half of NK with stronger market friendliness. Suppose they adopt Euro as the national currency. Could the experts describe to me how this is gonna pan out with pros & cons?

I mentioned specifically North Korea cause it has access to sea logistics and lots of inland water. Also, Chinese, Japanese, Southeast Asian, Indian, South Korean, Western American markets are pretty nearby.

I know mixed economy means practically socialism + capitalism. Suppose that NK will be in 2 different economic regions: half of NK with stronger socialist policies & half of NK with stronger market friendliness. And both regions are mixed economy capitalism, just in different degrees of socialist policies and tax rates.

When comparing a potential AI bubble with the dot-com bubble, how much does the distinction between public and private markets matter?

Public markets allow expectations to be repriced continuously, whereas private valuations are negotiated through funding rounds. To what extent can existing investors sustain those valuations by providing follow-on capital, limiting the price discovery that might otherwise trigger a correction?

I’m particularly interested in whether this gives investors enough control to keep financing companies until their earnings justify their valuations, or whether capital constraints and the eventual need for liquidity make that adjustment unavoidable.

If so, will their then be no Ai bubble?

How increasing interest rates leads to an increase in bond yields?
Also is that the reason why an increase in interest rates will increase a government’s budget deficit, because more tax revenue will go towards servicing the debt (bond yields)?
I recently saw a graph that showcased that an increase in interest rates in the USA will increase the federal government’s budget deficit and I began to wonder.

Same as the title, if a country, particularly Costa Rica, has observed polluted rivers due to the advanced farming techniques that include overuse of chemicals( fertilisers and Pesticides ) then can we consider the overuse of chemicals a case of negative consumption externality or is it negative production externality?

Over the past few weeks, I've seen a lot of articles focussing on France's unsustainable debt. Is there any particular reason why economists are particularly concerned about France. Looking at common measurements of debt, France doesn't seem to be the worst of the 'developed' countries:

• Debt-GDP: Both Italy, the USA, and Japan have a higher debt-GDP ratio.
• Deficit-GDP: The UK, Belgium, and the US have a higher deficit-GDP ratio.
• Bond Yields: UK / USA / Australia all have higher bond yields.

Am I looking at the wrong metrics? Is there a reason why more focus is being placed on France's debt situation as opposed to the US / UK?

Is there any theorization/simulation of what would happen if all organizations that have them had to get rid of their endowments? I know it would have a large impact, but I can’t even start to imagine what it would be, and can’t seem to find much through my own searches.

I recently joined a project studying indigenous communities. I unfortunately cannot reveal too many details due to confidentiality. It is related to socio-economic aspects of the communities.

I am studying 3 tribes in 2 geographical regions. The study has both a quantitative as well as a qualitative aspect. The doubt I have is regarding quantitative sampling. I will give a population breakdown

Region 1

Community A = 4558

Community B = 3765

Community C = 2366

Region 2

Community A = 1323

Community B = 676

Community C = 390

How to determine a representative sample which adequately represents all 3 communities? When I used Cochran's (1977) method of estimating sample size, I got a total required sample of 374 (after finite population correction), which then further subdivided proportionally based on the population sizes of each community in each region. However, that made the required sample from region 2 very small (38, 19 and 11 samples for each group in region 2).

My supervisor told me to calculate sample size separately for each community. But doing so gives an unreasonably large sample size which I cannot feasibly cover in the project period.

Need advice. What's the correct method here? Is there any other reputed method other than Cochran's to be used here?

I don't know if this is the correct sub to ask this. I am an economics masters graduate so i thought I'd ask here. I am very new to applied research. I didn't want to rely on AI either

Please help

Having been to Costa Rica and Panama, both countries partially use the United States Dollar, but they also both have local currencies too (the Costa Rican colón and the Panamanian balboa).

They don't use their local currencies for everything, but then why wouldn't they fully switch to the United States Dollar either (like El Salvador or Ecuador)? Sure, they can maintain monetary control if they don't fully switch to the United States Dollar, but if that's their goal, why not avoid partial dollarisation and use their local currencies for everything instead?

This system of partial dollarisation is also something that seems to be official government policy in Costa Rica and Panama. It's not like, say, elite shops in the USSR that only accept payment in western currencies; or the United States Dollar being used as the de-facto currency during hyperinflation in Venezuela, Argentina and Zimbabwe.