McDonald's Japan Swing Manager Miwa Suzuki presents a box of McChoco Potato on January 25, 2016 in Tokyo, Japan

Fast and Pluribus: Impacts of a Globalizing McDonald’s

The expansion of McDonald’s in the twentieth century brought the fast food chain to more than 100 countries. But how well did it integrate into its new home(s)?
Adam Smith

Adam Smith, Revolutionary?

By 1800, Smith—once considered a friend of the poor and an enemy of the privileges of the rich—was already being refashioned into a icon of conservatism.
An image of tigers and tropical leaves

Economic Grrrowth in the East: Asian Tiger Economies

Can the conditions that produced the fast-growing economies of the Four Tigers—Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan—be replicated?
Ladies at the tellers’windows of the Fifth Avenue Bank, New York 1900

A Bank of Her Own

The first US bank for women was opened by a fraudster in 1879. It took 40 years for a reputable women’s bank to be founded in Tennessee.
Flat vector illustration created from paper cut elements, hand drawn doodles and textures depicting mass surveillance and thin line between privacy and security concept.

Aspymmetrical Powers: Economic and Cyber Espionage

The lack of global governance over some acts of economic and cyber espionage is likely an intentional choice, one with varying benefits for state actors.
Scuba diver passing by a wreckage of a large sunken ship in the Red Sea.

Wreckonomics: “Finders Keepers” in Maritime Law

Finding valuable treasure underwater is more complicated than “finders keepers, losers weepers.” Competing maritime laws govern the recovered riches.
close up of $1 US dollar banknote

Why is the US Dollar So Strong?

Not only did post-World War II policy give the United States a managerial position in the world order, it gave it an outsize role in shaping the global economy.
An image made by the FDA about nutritional labeling, 1990

Where Do Nutrition Labels Come From?

We all ponder them when standing in the cereal aisle of the grocery store, but why do we even have nutrition labels on our foods?
A man sweeps cooked rice still in the husk into piles to dry at a rice mill July 18, 2008 in Srinigar, Bangladesh

Food Price Inflation and Health

Periods of concurrent economic downturn and high food price inflation can exacerbate health threats for infants and children in developing countries.
A collection of objects from the civil war

Patriotism and Consumerism in the Civil War

For a burgeoning consumer society, store-bought flags and bonnets offered proof that commercialism could go hand in hand with heartfelt emotion.