Did American Investors Believe Evergrande would be China’s Lehman Moment?

Article by Katie Chen On September 22nd, 2021, Chinese real estate giant Evergrande failed to meet a coupon deadline totaling $83 million of bond interest payments. News outlets drew comparisons between  Evergrande’s crisis and the Lehman Brothers’ collapse; it seemed as though Evergrande’s potential bankruptcy had the ability to trigger global financial panic.   As the

How are Global Interest Rates Responding to Recent Inflationary Pressures?

Article by Jennifer Lim Following an unprecedented intentional shutdown of economic activity to fight the pandemic, switching it back on has caused a lot of turbulence. As the restrictions loosened, consumers armed with stimulus money entered a sluggish market with dysfunctional supply chains and significant labor shortages. This forced consumer prices in the United States

Football to Manufacturing: The Divergent Path of Nearby Competitors

Article by Joseph Zhong Imagine you are a five-star quarterback that grew up in Alabama, with guarantees that you would be the starting quarterback your freshman year. Which school would you pick: the University of Alabama or Samford University? The answer is obvious: University of Alabama. But why did you choose it? The coaching staff,

COVID-19: Baby Bump or Baby Dump?

Article by Sambhav Maheshwari  The COVID-19 pandemic, by changing experiences across transportation, well-being, caregiving, health care, and jobs, has caused society-wide shifts in behavior with potentially far reaching consequences. One of these is the impact on birth rates with potentially long-lived demographic consequences.  In 2020, many academics predicted that the incidence of a pandemic (COVID)

Income Inequality and Democratic Backsliding

Article by Meghna Pamula Although democracy has greatly expanded globally over the past few decades, democratic backsliding has been a topic of concern over recent years. Democratic backsliding is the state-led debilitation or elimination of the institutions sustaining democracy. Democracy is made up of factors such as voting rights, freedom of the governed, and minority

The Inland Empire’s Industry Resilience

Article By Anya Syed During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, unemployment rates soared throughout the US, with rates differing across US counties. According to the most recent UCLA Anderson Forecast Report, LA County’s unemployment rate was 4.9%, while Riverside county’s unemployment rate was 3.6% in September 2022. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the

Does Mail-in Voting Actually Increase Election Participation?

Article By Noah Hendelman The 2020 United States presidential election saw a major increase in mail-in voting as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. This shift was politicized, with republicans falsely claiming the method was more prone to widespread fraud, and democrats hoping that an increased turnout stemming from mail-in voting would benefit their party.

What’s the Effect of Increasing the Felony Theft Threshold?

Article by Kara Hagler Recently, news outlets have shown videos of people stealing from stores and freely exiting the building with no punishment. It begs the question as to how all these people are stealing in broad daylight without facing punishment from the store or police. One potential hypothesis for this open stealing in stores

Trade Dependency and a Post-Russian Invasion Stock Market

Article by Nicolas De Mello and Anya Syed When news of Russia’s encroachment into Ukrainian territory began, the global stock market immediately responded. Meanwhile, countries rushed to impose sanctions and called diplomatic meetings to address the dire situation. By early March, 141 countries had condemned Russia for its invasion at the UN and vowed to