economic forecasting

Real Engineering looks at why nuclear power plants are expensive and how their economics compare with fossil and renewable alternatives. It is based on a video from the Illinois Energy Professors.

Wendover Productions explains why Boeing's efficient 787 beat Airbus's giant A380, contrasting hub-and-spoke with point-to-point routes. It covers the economics of long-haul flights.

An Economics Explained video arguing that the Netherlands shows taxes alone can't reduce wealth inequality. It distinguishes income inequality from wealth inequality and discusses the Gini index.

Ray Dalio's 30-minute animated video explains how the economy works through credit, debt, interest rates, and short- and long-term cycles. It is based on his template for understanding the economy.

Wendover Productions explains how airlines make money from different cabin classes and why premium seats matter so much to profits. It also touches on how this shaped decisions such as the decline of supersonic travel.

A rap battle in which John Maynard Keynes and F. A. Hayek debate the causes of boom and bust, stimulus, and bailouts. It was produced by Econstories to teach the two schools of thought.

A short Wendover Productions explainer on ETOPS, the rules that let twin-engine jets fly long routes over oceans. It covers the economics that favored twinjets like the 787 over four-engine aircraft like the A380 and 747.

FortNine explains the economics of the dealership model, arguing that dealers absorb inventory risk and help manufacturers' finances. It looks at whether cars and motorcycles could be sold more cheaply without them.

An Economics Explained video on the different kinds of billionaires, from founders to oligarchs. It explains how wealth is held in illiquid stock and why diversification is a problem for some.

An animated 44-minute summary of Ray Dalio's book Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order. It lays out the Big Cycle of rising and declining nations, covering debt cycles, internal conflict, and shifts in global power over the past 500 years.

Wendover Productions explains why modern airliners fly no faster than they did decades ago, covering the economics of speed and fuel efficiency, and why supersonic travel faded.

RethinkX summarizes its report arguing that mainstream LCOE estimates are inflating a bubble in coal, gas, nuclear and hydro assets. It claims solar, wind and batteries will strand conventional energy investments.

PolyMatter's first part of a series on China's demographic collapse, covering the effects of the one-child policy, shrinking workforce and economic consequences.

CGP Grey's video "Humans Need Not Apply" argues that automation will make a large part of the workforce economically obsolete, much as engines did for horses. It surveys robots and software replacing both physical and mental labor.

Wendover Productions explains why US passenger rail lags behind other countries. It covers freight companies owning most of the track, geography and population density, and the economics of competing with flying.

An RSA Animate video that illustrates a talk by geographer David Harvey on the crises of capitalism. It covers creative destruction, wage stagnation masked by credit, and the search for a more just economic order.

Comedian Dominic Frisby gives a ten-minute explanation of land value tax. He argues it would fix problems of rent-seeking and the economics of land ownership.

A Wendover Productions explainer arguing that major airlines make much of their profit from loyalty programs and co-branded credit cards rather than flying. It frames airlines as quasi-banks that sell points in bulk, using United's pandemic-era loan as a hook.

A short film from the Competitive Enterprise Institute adapting Leonard Read's 1958 essay I, Pencil, showing how no one person knows how to make a pencil and how many people cooperate without central planning.

PolyMatter explains China's housing bubble and why around 50 million homes sit empty. It covers cultural and economic reasons behind the overbuilding and the government's bind.

CityNerd Ray Delahanty explains induced demand and what happens when freeways are widened. He walks through the economics of supply and demand applied to traffic and asks how much new traffic appears and whether congestion returns.

A short animated explainer that stages a $100 footrace in which contestants start at different distances from the line, depending on the advantages or disadvantages they inherited. It uses the race as a metaphor for how unequal starting points shape outcomes, citing US census income and poverty figures.

A three-minute excerpt from Milton Friedman's Free to Choose in which he uses a pencil to show that no single person knows how to make it. He argues that the free market coordinates countless strangers peacefully.

Kurzgesagt makes a selfish case for improving the world, arguing that helping people far away raises prosperity and innovation for everyone, including yourself. The animated video frames this as egoistic altruism and positive-sum cooperation.

Not Just Bikes explains, using Urban3's property-tax analysis, why car-dependent suburbs generate less tax revenue than they cost to maintain, so dense urban cores effectively subsidize them. It is part of a Strong Towns series.

A Wendover Productions explainer on why train tickets, especially Amtrak in the US, cost so much compared with flying. It breaks down staffing, speed and the cost components behind a ticket.

A short animated TED-Ed lesson in which two competing ice cream vendors on a beach illustrate why rival shops cluster together. It introduces game theory and the Nash equilibrium through the Hotelling model.

Wendover Productions explains how UK rail privatization worked and why it failed. It covers the fragmented operator and infrastructure structure and why market forces apply poorly to rail.

Eager Space examines the practicality of putting data centers in orbit, walking through three scenarios with cost calculations and the launch cost reductions that would be required.

A Wendover Productions explainer on the political agreements, from the Chicago Convention onward, that determine which airlines can fly where. It lays out the five freedoms of the air.

Perun analyzes how corruption and theft in defence procurement hollowed out the Russian military before its invasion of Ukraine. It explains the mechanics of graft and how it degrades capability.

CGP Grey's short animated argument for abolishing the US penny, covering its cost and history.

A Wendover Productions explainer on how budget airlines can sell tickets for under 10 euros. It covers the costs airlines face and how low-cost carriers structure their business.

Asianometry traces how the Japanese zaibatsu families grew into vast industrial combines and how postwar reforms abruptly broke up their wealth and control.

A short Bank of England video accompanying its 2014 Quarterly Bulletin article on money creation. It explains that most money is bank deposits and that commercial banks create new money by making loans, which simultaneously create matching deposits.

Asianometry examines why Japan's software industry has lagged despite its hardware strengths. It looks at dependence on US software and the low prestige of programming.

John Green explains why the US spends far more on health care than other countries, going through insurers, drug companies, hospitals and lawyers. He argues the causes are complicated rather than a simple blame game.

A Wendover Productions video on how dollar store chains expanded across America and why they displace grocery stores in small towns. It covers their business model and supplier leverage.

An RSA Animate adaptation of a Dan Ariely lecture on dishonesty. It explores when ordinary people lie or cheat and how they rationalize small acts of dishonesty.

A two-minute clip in which Milton Friedman uses a humble pencil to show how thousands of strangers across many countries cooperate, without central direction, to make a simple product. It is a short visual version of the 'I, Pencil' essay's argument about free markets and dispersed knowledge.