Tuesday's Assorted Links

Sports betting, bank seizures, worker productivity, Gen Z finances, and hotel bookings

Source: The Hustle

Hi y’all! Here are five stories from this week that contained some neat applications of economic principles or are related to teaching:

1. Sportsbooks generated $5.8B+ in revenue last year and are only expected to grow as more states legalize sports gambling [The Hustle]

2. Regulators seized First Republic Bank yesterday and sold most of its assets to JPMorgan, the country’s largest bank [CNBC]

3. Generative AI boosts worker productivity by 14% in the first real-world study [Bloomberg | NBER]

4. What do you know about the finances of young adults in America? Take this quiz to find out [The New York Times]

5. Buying stuff online can be stressful, but booking a hotel has become a uniquely excruciating experience [The Atlantic]

---

Philadelphia Cream Cheese and H&H Bagels created a new stuffed bagel to protest the so-called "bagel tax" in New York City, which imposes an 8.875% sales tax on prepared foods. The tax was intended to incentivize people to cook their own meals instead of eating at restaurants, but legal tax avoidance methods like the stuffed bagel can have creative and unintended consequences.

---

I needed a break from some of the books I was reading before, and I thought I would spice things up with Forget the Alamo by Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, and Jason Stanford. I like to switch things up every now and then so I don’t get too bogged down in what I’m reading. The authors argue that the Alamo myth, which portrays the famous battle as a heroic struggle for Texan independence against Mexican tyranny, is a distorted version of the truth that has been perpetuated for over a century.

The authors present a more nuanced view of the Alamo, revealing the various political, economic, and social factors that contributed to the conflict. They also examine the role of race, slavery, and colonization in shaping the events leading up to the battle and explore the ways in which the Alamo myth has been used for political purposes.