Advertising guy 1: "bla bla bla communications bla bla bla"

The year is 3022 and this galactic sporting event is having some financial issues.

[NBC]

[Thanks Jerry]

[Thanks Johan!]

Have fun with Wii Fit.

In 1978, when Krugman was an assistant professor at Princeton, he wrote a paper called The Theory of Interstellar Trade. If two planets, for example Earth and Trantor, are engaging in trade of goods that require transportation near lightspeed, how will interest rates be determined, given the theory of general relativity (time goes slower near the speed of light)?

Abstract: This paper extends interplanetary trade theory to an interstellar setting. It is chiefly concerned with the following question: how should interest rates on goods in transit be computed when the goods travel at close to the speed of light? This is a problem because the time taken in transit will appear less to an observer traveling with the goods than to a stationary observer. A solution is derived from economic theory, and two useless but true theorems are proved… This paper, then, is a serious analysis of a ridiculous subject, which is of course the opposite of what is usual in economics.

This entertaining paper has now been scanned and is free for everybody to enjoy.

NY Times via http://theplanninglab.com/?p=374 Blog activity has been a bit slow on TPL, but I’ll be back in 2008 with more good stuff. Enjoy these clips by Flight of the Conchords til then and have a nice holiday.