Category: Daily Life Economics
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Why Does a School Logo Make Uniform More Expensive?
I am part of a school WhatsApp group. Well, actually, I am part of two. But one of them could have inspired all those memes circulating on social media about school WhatsApp groups erupting for hours over the simplest imaginable question. One of our latest extended conversations concerned a change to the PE kit. The…
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Why Should we Learn Economics from an Early Age?
We are spending part of the summer at a campsite in north Spain with our six-year-old son and four-year-old daughter. Like many campsites, it is a relatively safe environment where children have a little more independence than they normally would. They have made friends, they go to the campsite shop by themselves to buy small…
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How Could Spain Win the World Cup If It Had Only a 16% Chance of Winning?
Yesterday, Spain won the FIFA World Cup. Yet, before the tournament began, statistical models estimated that Spain had only a 16.1% chance of becoming world champions. If Spain had only around a one-in-six chance of winning the tournament, how did it end up lifting the trophy? The answer is not only about football. It is…
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How Can Policy Help Us Cope with a Heatwave?
The north-eastern Spanish region of Aragón is seeing some of the highest temperatures of the heatwave and, in the cities of Zaragoza and Huesca, local authorities have responded by reducing the price of entry for public swimming pools.” – BBC News, 23 June 2026. Sofia (@dailylifeecon) grew up in Zaragoza, one of the cities mentioned…
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The Motherhood Penalty: Why childcare costs are really a labour market problem.
“I’m coming back part-time after maternity leave.” It is a sentence I started hearing repeatedly after moving to the UK. This surprised me because it was not something I had heard nearly as often before. Of course, there are many reasons why somebody may decide to reduce their hours after having children. Family preferences, cultural…
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The Future of Higher Education in the Age of AI
Last week, we had the opportunity to attend the 15th Conference on Teaching and Research in Economic Education (CTREE), where educators from around the world came together to discuss some of the biggest challenges and opportunities facing higher education today. The conference covered a wide range of topics. However, one theme appeared repeatedly across presentations,…
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Why do professional football players earn more than nurses?
On the 31st of March, we were invited as panellist to discuss the Economics of Football an event organised in collaboration with the University of Manchester, the Bank of England, Discover Economics and the Financial Times Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign. During the session, Sofia discussed how football can be used to understand key economic…
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The Economics of Political Leadership Contests
Over the last few days, speculation about the future leadership of the Labour Party has started to appear more frequently in newspapers, political commentary, and social media discussions. To be clear, Keir Starmer has not resigned, and this is still only speculation. But in economics, speculation itself can be extremely powerful. The moment markets, firms,…
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The Devil Wears Prada 2 and the Economics of a Blockbuster
Tonight, I (Sofia) am going to the cinema with a friend to watch The Devil Wears Prada 2, and I am genuinely looking forward to it. Like many people, I loved the original film, which was based on the bestselling novel written by Lauren Weisberger (did you know she wrote the book after working for…
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Living longer is not enough: why healthy years matter
“Our health system is the best in the world” This is a sentence you may recognise. Depending on where you are from, you may have heard a version of it from politicians, newspapers, relatives, neighbours, or even yourself. And if you have travelled, lived abroad, or married into another culture, you will know that many…
