De ‘wiskundeknobbel’: een wel of niet bestaand fenomeen?
De Econometrist
De Econometrist neemt een statistische kijk op de wereld.
How to build a monopoly
The story goes that Thales of Milete, the Greek philosopher, wanted to disprove the claim that philosophers don’t know how to make money. He therefore used all the money he had to buy all available olive presses right before the harvest. After this, he could rent them out at a really high price when demand peaked. This became known as one of the first examples of a monopoly. Horizontal vs. vertical progress Everybody strives for progress in one way or another. A baker wants to bake better breads, a supermarket strives to get more customers […]
6 minuten
Rebus of Econometrics meme
Some students are already done with the exams and others are still studying to get as many ECTS as possible (in other words, surviving in the university library). In both situations it is nice to solve a little puzzle and to use your brain for something else than only numbers. Since I enjoy the econometric memes a lot, I made a rebus of an econometric meme. I hope you can solve the rebus and will enjoy the meme. If so, you can contact me and I am happy to share more great econometric memes with […]
1 minuut
The PageRank algorithm
How did Google become so successful? What did the first search engine look like? The answer to these questions is related to a pretty basic mathematical concept which was revolutionary in that time. In this article I will tell you about the PageRank algorithm, which is the first and best known algorithm that Google uses. You may have heard the name earlier, Larry Page, he is one of the founders of Google and also one of the richest men in the world. He studied computer science at the University of Michigan and at Stanford University. […]
6 minuten
Mind-boggling mathematical concepts
According to legend, the famous Achilles, hero of the Trojan War, was the fastest runner in all of Greece. One day an lazy old tortoise challenged Achilles to a race, claiming that he could win as long as Achilles gave him a small head start. Achilles laughed and told the tortoise he would surely lose, on which the tortoise replied: “On the contrary, I will win, and I can prove it to you by a simple argument.” The argument given by the tortoise is the famous Zeno’s paradox, a piece from a series of paradoxes […]
3 minuten
Market Making bij Flow Traders
Een Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) is een fonds samengesteld uit verschillende aandelen en/of obligaties om zo in zijn risico en rendement een gelijk resultaat te behalen als een bepaalde index. ETF’s bieden veel positieve effecten, zo kunnen onder andere investeerders met een kleine hoeveelheid kapitaal toch hun risico spreiden, doordat een ETF bestaat uit meerdere componenten, en dus hoeft een belegger niet elk aandeel los te kopen. Wanneer je dan een ETF wilt kopen, springt er misschien een vraag in je gedachte: hoe is het eigenlijk mogelijk dat je op ieder moment dat de markt […]
4 minuten
Raadsel: gevangen op een eiland
Op een afgelegen eiland leven tweehonderd gevangenen. Honderd van hen hebben blauwe ogen, honderd hebben bruine ogen. De gevangenen hebben geen kennis van deze verdeling, noch van hun eigen oogkleur. Verder leeft er een bewaker op het eiland, die de gevangenen nauwlettend in de gaten houdt. Dat is wel nodig, want de gevangenen kunnen allemaal perfect logisch nadenken. Ze mogen van de bewaker op geen enkele manier met elkaar communiceren. Ze krijgen echter een kans om het eiland te verlaten; Zo vertelt de bewaker, welke zelf groene ogen heeft: “Vertel mij welke kleur ogen je hebt, en […]
2 minuten
Apple Inc.: The biggest economical dictator of all?
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things.” I happened to come across this famous quote by Rob Siltanen, director of Apple’s ‘Think Different’ campaign (1997). The ‘you’ in the quote is referring to Apple, the – market value speaking […]
4 minuten
A hapPi day
Today is international Pi-day: the 14th of March, also denoted as 3.14, which are the first digits of . To celebrate this beautiful day, let us read and analyse the following poem: Yes! A rare procrastination Something to donate poems and avoid homework Challenge: deliver beautiful and pi-fun messages! This message may seem as just a couple of sentences that are formed a little unnaturally. It does make sense however, as the poem follows a strict structure. If you write down the length of all words in the poem, you will find the following: 3 1 […]
Why the Dutch government bought stocks in Air France-KLM
You may have heard that the Dutch government bought 12.7 percent of Air France-KLM share worth 680 million euros. This has brought up a lot of commotion between the French government and the Dutch. The Netherlands actually already had some stocks in KLM but not in Air France-KLM. So why did the Dutch government suddenly buy these stocks in secret? Dutch economy and KLM The primary reason for this is the fact that Air France is not doing so well. If we look at the numbers we see that Air France’s profit is much lower […]
8 minuten
Brexit Explained
In the past few weeks you probably have come across the composition of Great Britain and the word exit, Brexit. Simply said, the Brexit is the departure of Great Britain who are currently still part of the European Union. Motivation The relationship between Great Britain and the European Union has been complicated since they joined the former EU, the European Economic Community in 1973. Although the U.K. was one of the first countries to establish the EU, their borders and currency remained in their power. Great Britain has several reasons for leaving the EU. This […]
Vrijheid blijheid?
The Netherlands has one of the most developed pension systems in the world. However, this system is deteriorating in comparison with how it used to be in the past. The reason for this event is, among other things, our ageing society, the increased life expectancy, the descending interest and the enormous amount of freelancers. A lot of people are questioning whether our current pension system is connecting with the time we live in right now.
5 minuten
Normality makes sense
It is one of the first concepts that you will learn in almost any introductory statistics course: the normal distribution. In more advanced courses, the concept of normality becomes so “normal” that the distribution itself is rarely looked at in depth. Why do so many things follow a normal distribution? Properties of the normal distribution The normal distribution is a mathematical creature also referred to as a “bell curve” because of its shape. All data that is normally distributed can be converted to a standard normal distribution, represented by the picture below. The x-axis gives […]
De Redactie
De redactie van De Econometrist bestaat momenteel uit 12 leden die samen een hechte groep vormen. Regelmatig onderneemt de groep leuke activiteiten. Als je alle redacteurs wilt zien kijk dan op de redactie pagina.
