Being out of a job can erode people's confidence and their sense of possibility; and employers, often unfairly, tend to take long-term unemployment as a signal that something is wrong.

Intellectual-property rules are clearly necessary to spur innovation: if every invention could be stolen, or every new drug immediately copied, few people would invest in innovation. But too much protection can strangle competition and can limit what economists call 'incremental innovation' - innovations that build, in some way, on others.

You might think of consumption as a fairly passive activity, but buying new products and services is actually pretty risky, at least if you value your time and money.

In the auto industry, there's one thing you can always count on: if a new environmental or safety rule is proposed, executives will prophesy disaster.

As technology improves, on-screen avatars look more and more like real people. When they start looking too real, though, we pull away. These almost-humans aren't quite right; they look creepy, like zombies.

Art collecting has traditionally been the domain of wealthy individuals in search of rewards beyond the purely financial.

From a social point of view, it's beneficial that homeownership encourages commitment to a given town or city. But, from an economic point of view, it's good for people to be able to leave places where there's less work and move to places where there's more.