That's Interesting
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Household Debt, Consumption, and Monetary Policy in Australia
30th April, 2019‘This paper discusses the evolution of the household debt in Australia and finds that while higher-income and higher-wealth households tend to have higher debt, lower-income households may become more vulnerable to rising debt service over time.’
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PBS: Why it will take more than basic recycling to cut back on plastic
26th March, 2019“In the 70 years that plastic has been around, humans have created 9 billion tons of it — most of which still exists. Are the existing strategies for tackling plastic pollution — namely reusing and recycling — really making any difference?”
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RBA: A Model of the Australian Housing Market
26th March, 2019“We build an empirical model of the Australian housing market that quantifies interrelationships between construction, vacancies, rents and prices. We find that low interest rates (partly reflecting lower world long-term rates) explain much of the rapid growth in housing prices and construction over the past few years. Another demand factor, high immigration, also helps explain the tight housing market and rapid growth in rents in the late 2000s. A large part of the effect of interest rates on dwelling investment, and hence GDP, works through housing prices.”
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Recreating ancient artifacts may be the future of archaeology
26th March, 2019“Have you ever heard of an archaeologist who burns, hammers or smashes artifacts? That’s what Metin Eren does, except it’s with replicas. Eren is a rising star in the field of experimental archaeology. In his lab at Kent State University, he tests recreations of early stone tools, trying to understand their purpose and design–and what those meant for human development.”
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A Brief History of Vox: The Sound of the British Invasion
09th January, 2019‘In the mid-1960s, young groups like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Yardbirds led the British Invasion, in which blues-rich rock ’n’ roll became the dominant mode of expression. While each group had its own idiosyncratic slant on the music, they all shared a powerful weapon: amplification courtesy of Vox.’
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St Louis Fed: How Has Trade Affected U.S. Manufacturing Jobs?
09th January, 2019‘Recent U.S. manufacturing job losses attributed to Chinese imports seem small compared with monthly turnover of the entire U.S. labor market, and the share of recent losses also seems small when looking at long-term declines in manufacturing employment.’
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Biologist Rates The Pain Of 83 Different Insects Stings
09th January, 2019“King of Sting” Justin O. Schmidt is a biologist at the Southwestern Biological Institute. A “connoisseur of pain,” he has ranked 83 different insect stings on a pain index based on his own experience.
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