“Life is, largely, a matter of expectation..” — Horace How many times have you changed your opinion in the past couple of weeks? How many articles, YouTube videos, Facebook posts or Instagram pictures have you seen that presented plausible counter arguments to your opinion? In the ‘.com’ era, opinions change as fast as weather forecasts, and
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We have this popular myth back in my country that says: ‘A lightning never hits the same place twice’. Now, with the few I was able to absorb from my interpretation classes, this popular expression clearly refers to the fact that really improbable things, such as being struck by a lightning – during normal conditions
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With the Champions League heading to it’s quarterfinals, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about the hobby that most people get into during this period of the year: betting. Now, I’m not a betting guru, and my student bank account can prove that, but, some microeconomic studies do theorize on how to bet
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The first question you get when you decide to apply for an economics bachelor’s is how good you are in mathematics. As you go through the courses you understand the origin of the preoccupation quite well: at a certain point, mathematics no longer has numbers, only letters. You study statistics, econometrics, calculus, linear algebra, and
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As a Brazilian, I kind of always feel compelled to give an update about what is happening in my country. I’m sorry if these updates have been constant since I started writing for Rostra, but Brazil keeps giving me things to talk about, and unfortunately, not good ones. Since there are many similarities between our
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The outcome of the U.S. presidential elections has destabilized the future of U.S.-Latin America relations. Although President-elect Donald Trump did not discuss a detailed foreign policy towards Latin America during his campaign, trade and immigration—two key topics of his campaign—are likely to dominate the agenda across the continent. Mexico is expected to receive the hardest
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In a study written in 1956 titled “The Nacirema”, anthropologist Horace Miner talks about a day in the life of an American tribe. Below, you can see one fragment of his study: “Nacirema culture is characterized by a highly developed market economy which has evolved in a natural habitat. While much of the people’s time
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“First, negative affect may shape peoples decisions by coloring the content of their thoughts. It is well established that under negative mood people’s perceptions, thoughts, and judgments are often distorted toward greater negativityan effect known as mood congruency (…). Second, negative affective states may alter the process through which people make decisions. It is widely
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“The social pact, far from destroying natural equality, substitutes, on the contrary, a moral and lawful equality for whatever physical inequality that nature may have imposed on mankind; so that however unequal in strength and intelligence, men become equal by covenant and by right.” – Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. Contracts have existed since the beginning of
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Philanthropist, the 7th richest man in the world from 1979-1983, politician, community leader and drug lord. Pablo Escobar can be described using so many different adjectives, most of which is worthy of a Tony Stark description. It’s true that Escobar built an empire doing illicit business, but it’s undeniable that he was a great businessman
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It has been almost one year since my arrival in Amsterdam, and it’s time for us to sit down and talk a little bit about this experience. It’s really hard to explain to another person, who didn’t have the experience of studying outside their country, what you feel in the first few months of having
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Listening to grandparent’s’ history as a child is one of the best and most frustrating activities of childhood at the same time. On one hand, you listen to these great stories about the Second or even the First World War, but on the other hand you think if you will ever be able to see
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Ikea, Facebook, Alibaba, Amazon, Google… These are just some examples of companies that have their foundation in the internet. Since its creation, it’s unquestionable that the internet opened doors to entrepreneurship, and potentiated the creation power of mankind. Economic analyses prove that with data from American planned investment in the 90-00’s. Even though taxes were higher
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Crisis, coups, shifts from dictatorships to “free democracies”… It is possible to say that the political situation of the whole world has been turbulent for the last 15 years – in my opinion after the start of Bush’s war against terror. Also, we have been discussing so many issues at the same time that it seems
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