Big tech companies can increase their market share by lowering prices and acting as a monopoly. These companies typically have high economies of scale which allow them to undercut competitor prices to attract their target market. Currently, the online retail market is dominated by Amazon. The graph above shows how Amazon attracts over 50% of

Over the past few decades, companies have focused on maximizing profit and decreasing competition. Top tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Netflix, and Amazon have evaluations greater than the GDP of a majority of countries in the world. These companies abuse their power, and the government is unable to efficiently regulate their growth.  Mergers

Political and Legal Lens  In the case of an imitation economy, it is essential that the involvement of government is addressed. Governments want to nourish innovation and competition and regulate the power of monopolies or oligopolies. According to senior reporter Chavie Lieber at Vox, imitation economies are good for a country’s economic climate. For example,

Social Lens  When considering imitation and collectivism, one must examine both ideologies from a social perspective. Specifically, examining how individuals react using behavioral economics. Behavioral economics is the interdisciplinary combination of economic theory and psychology. It allows the measuring of social, emotional, and psychological factors in decision making and its biases. A team of MIT

Over the last several decades, key innovations have spurred the creation of modern-day industries and social tendencies. For companies to situate themselves in high-growth markets, they must implement successful imitation strategies. Companies that pioneer new products and operational strategies set trends for others to follow. During the pandemic, many legacy clothing retailers like J. Crew

Rent Control in the Twin Cities In November of 2021, due to an affordable housing crisis spurred by a global pandemic, Twin Cities voters approved a new rent control policy. As a result, renting families have greater financial stability because there is little to no increase in rent prices. However, there, are several external factors

Introduction According to a group of Harvard researchers, affordable housing is crucial as wages stagnate and housing costs rise, causing millions of Americans to be housing cost-burdened (Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, 2018). Housing cost-burdened means that a household is spending more than 30% of its income on housing. Approximately 50% of

Upward Intergenerational Social MobilityLeon Luo, Mark Fu, Tony Pappas Project Overview This project uses statistics and model building to predict the Intergenerational Social MobilityRate, as defined in Chetty et al. 2020. This project, an intersection of data science and socialscience, consists of data collection, statistical analysis, data revision and merging, and model build-ing. The project

Last year, I read the play Raisin in the Sun and it piqued my interest in the topic of economic disparities. Highlighting practices of redlining and predatory lending during the 1950s in Chicago, this play describes how both these practices were products of systemic racial steering in real estate that prevented Black families from building wealth and accessing better infrastructure.   In 1968 redlining was ended by the