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The Economist: 2 ideas worth knowing

2 ideas from The Economist, each explained in a minute and credited to the original work. Free on Savvy.

• Discovering natural gas quietly wrecked the rest of the Dutch economy

  After the Netherlands found a huge natural gas field in 1959, gas exports pushed up the value of the guilder, making Dutch manufactured goods pricier abroad and hollowing out the e…

  — The Economist, The Dutch Disease

• A fast-food burger has quietly measured currencies against each other since 1986

  The Economist created the Big Mac Index in 1986: comparing a Big Mac's price across countries, converted into a single currency, gives a rough, deliberately tongue-in-cheek gauge o…

  — Pam Woodall, The Economist, Big Mac Currencies

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