I am currently an Economics and Mathematics undergraduate at the US, and I have been considering applying to the Graduate Institute Geneva (IHEID) for its Master's in International Economics track. My school has a joint BA-MA partnership with IHEID that would allow me to receive financial aid for the first year towards the degree which is a big factor in why I am considering it. I would, frankly, also really love the opportunity to study and live in Switzerland! I am also considering pursuing an Economics PhD eventually, most likely in econometrics.

I am a junior and have taken math courses (A's) including real and complex analysis, probability theory, smooth manifolds and geometry, and advanced abstract algebra (including Galois theory), as well as upper-level economics and econometrics courses. I am also currently taking PhD microeconomics and have been doing well so far, although it's still early in the semester... I have been involved in research since early in undergrad, including some development economics projects, and I am hoping to write an undergraduate thesis...

One of my professors was actually somewhat hesitant about recommending IHEID when I initially brought it up although we were discussing the Master's in International and Development Studies (MINT) at the time. She was not as familiar with the International Economics program and mentioned that she would look into it further, but nothing back yet. So I am also hoping to get some additional perspectives from people who might be more familiar with the economics program specifically.

I'd really appreciate thoughts insights, especially from anyone familiar with the program and its PhD placements. Thank you so much!

I'm running a two-week paper trading test (not real money) on prediction-market trades. Earlier this week it had a good day after being down most of the week. Overall it's still clearly negative.

The temptation is to say "it's turning around," or to tweak the rules now. Before I started, I locked the rules and the end date so I can't do either. It feels like a textbook pre-commitment device against stopping on a good day.

For people who think about this stuff: does pre-committing to a fixed test length actually hold up, or do people usually find ways around their own rules? What rule has stopped you from fooling yourself?

Selling full test bank (chapters 1-15) with solutions for 20$ either paypal or venmo.

PM if interested.

Most of us treat automation anxiety as an arithmetic problem: will I lose my job, will wages drop? But the gut reaction usually shows up way before anyone opens a spreadsheet. Even at a self-checkout: no price changed, nobody is judging you, yet your jaw still tightens.

The framework that explains this is "money scripts," a four-part psychological inventory: avoidance, worship, status, and vigilance. Same news, four completely different reactions:

• Someone with a status script hears a threat to rank: their title, their seniority, where they sit in the room.

• A worship script (the belief that more money will finally make everything okay) hears a threat to the dream of "enough."

• A vigilance script hears confirmation that they were right to hoard and worry all along.

• An avoidance script just changes the subject—which looks calm from the outside, but is really the same panic with the volume muted.

The core argument is that the panic is about identity, not income.

Here is the historical test: the first industrial robot arm, the Unimate, went to work at a GM plant in Trenton back in 1961. It lifted and stacked burning hot die-cast parts. Nobody protested or lined up to defend that work, because no human ego was built around getting burned by hot metal. The panic only arrived decades later when machines moved into roles people had wrapped their self-worth around. The machine didn’t change. What it touched did.

So our reaction isn't a forecast of the future. It's an emotional readout of which script is running, and how much of ourselves is parked in a job title.

When you hear "a machine can do your job," which of those four instincts kicks in first—defending the work, chasing more security, saying "I told you so," or quietly ignoring it?

(We put together an animated visual breakdown on this dynamic—including why we judge algorithms harsher than humans for the exact same mistakes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYPOn0U0k18)

Most salaried people never divide their pay by the hours they actually work, and the result is worth seeing once.

Payroll treats a full-time year as 2,080 hours: 52 weeks times 40. Take a $52,000 salary. Divide by 2,080 and you get $25 an hour. Now say your real week is 45 hours. Your hour is worth about $22. Make it 50 hours and it's $20. Same salary, same contract, and the price of your hour fell by a fifth without anything on the payslip changing.

Those extra ten hours a week add up to 520 hours a year, which is thirteen full work weeks given away. A salary hides the hourly rate, so every unpaid hour comes straight out of it.

There's a second layer. Time behaves like perishable inventory, the way an airline seat does. Once the plane leaves, an unsold seat is worth zero. But airlines price seats dynamically, while most workers sell every hour at one flat rate. The 3am hour before a deadline is priced the same as a slow Tuesday afternoon.

So "time is precious" leaves out the key part: time expires, and it expires at a fixed price.

Have you ever worked out your real hourly rate once you counted the hours you actually put in?

We made a full animated breakdown of this, if you'd rather watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM79lJZugIg

Hello everyone! I wanted to ask if anyone knows of, is currently in, or has graduated from UND’s M.S. in Applied Economics and Predictive Analytics? I am about to finish my undergrad with my economics B.A. and Statistics B.S. and feel that UND’s online program seems appealing, as I am going to be working full-time after graduation. Any help is greatly appreciated!

The ostrich effect is a cognitive bias in which people ignore or avoid negative information, data, or feedback to escape emotional discomfort or anxiety.

The name comes from the myth that ostriches bury their heads in the sand when they are scared. The term was used by researchers Dan Galai and Orly Sade in a 2006 paper on financial information and investor behaviour.

Common examples include:

-Investors checking their portfolios during market booms but ignoring them during crashes.

-Avoiding unread bills, bank statements, or debt balances.

-Skipping a doctor’s appointment out of fear of a bad diagnosis.

Many times, we avoid facts that could bring real disappointment. For example, when we know an exam went badly, we may want to avoid facing the result. We may seek out information that pleases us and reject information that doesn’t.

I felt like exploring this kind of avoidance. When checking our weight or reflecting on past mistakes, we may try to avoid what we see.

Perhaps it hurts the image we hold of ourselves, the image we rely on to maintain a sense of who we are. That image gets shaken, and our instinct for self-preservation kicks in.

We have expectations about how we want things to be, and we project those expectations onto reality. It can be painful, sometimes almost unbearable, to realise that things are otherwise.

Avoidance, then, may not only be about the uncomfortable fact outside us; it may also be about protecting the version of ourselves we are unwilling to question.

This connects, though not in exactly the same way, to denialism. Climate denialism takes things a step further: it involves arguments against established evidence, not simply avoiding information. In some cases, denying or dismissing facts can help people continue acting in accordance with their desires or interests. Avoidance and denial aren’t identical, but both can protect us from information that challenges what we want to believe.

Despite many warnings from Earth itself, we want to keep going on and on with our own projects.

How do you see the relationship between avoiding uncomfortable facts and protecting our image of ourselves?

Sources:

https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/climate-change-a-crisis-of-honesty-1_09e5187