I Art You

Esquire reporter Colby Buzzell has a great in depth article about China’s economic miracle city Shenzhen. Although the article is a little on the longer side it paints a nice picture of the city and the ex pats as well as the Chinese who have made it there home.

There are a lot of interesting little facts about Shenzhen that even those who have traveled there would find interesting. For example the first McDonald’s in China was built in Shenzhen. The city which is just across the boarder from Hong Kong has been the industrial heartland for China’s rapid economic growth. Anyone who has visited the city realizes there is something special about Shanzhen and Buzzell does a good job of capturing that spirit.

Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR) recently released a report speculating about a price cut for the Xbox 360 followed by a PS3 price cut. I followed the stories link back to the EEDAR website and discovered what must be one of the most interesting jobs I have seen. Combing both Economics and the consumer electronics industry EEDAR advises companies in the process of designing games and analyzes their markets. Working for this company would be a gamers dream come true!

Well maybe games designed for economists are not for everyone, but I am an economist and I absolutely love playing games online that require knowledge of economics. There have been a wide range of educational games made to supplement economics lessons. A great source for these games is Econ Ed Link, although not every single thing is an econ game by searching the site it is possible to find some. My favorite game is Jack & The Bean Stock which tests young economists knowledge of free trade.

The games are simple and sometimes have very poor designs, but they where not designed for profit. Some economics teacher somewhere poured a lot of hard work into making learning economics a little more fun.