archiveEconomics

  The “law of one price” holds that identical goods should trade for the same price in an efficient market. But how well does it actually hold internationally? The Economist magazine’s Big Mac Index uses the price of McDonald’s Big Macs around the world, expressed in a common currency (U.S. dollars), to measure the extent to which various currencies are over- or under-valued. The Big Mac is a global product, identical across borders, which makes it an interesting one for this purpose.  But the law of one price assumes there are no...

The culmination of 2024 marked another key development in the recovery of the U.S. office market—as leasing activity has accelerated over the course of the year, Q4 was the first quarter of positive net absorption since Q4 2021, and just the second quarter of occupancy gain since the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Leasing activity has established post-pandemic highs for the past three consecutive quarters, and Q4 volume reflected more than 92% of pre-pandemic averages. With many companies establishing regular office attendance requirements in recent years, downsizing rates have...