Blogs y opiniones de economia en ingles

The following content is sponsored by Logiq

The History of Online Shopping

For many, it can be hard to remember the days when online shopping wasn’t an option. Yet, despite its prevalence now, online shopping is a relatively new phenomenon.

This graphic, presented by Logiq, outlines the brief history of online shopping and how it has evolved over the last few decades. We’ll also touch on how companies can get ahead in this rapidly evolving space and what it takes to remain competitive in today’s market.

Timeline: From the Late 70s to Present Day

According to BigCommerce, the first inklings of online shopping began in England, back in the late 1970s.

1970s: The Early Days

In 1979, the English inventor Michael Aldrich invented a system that allowed consumers to connect with businesses electronically. He did this by connecting a consumer’s TV to a retailer’s computer via a telephone line.

His invention was one of the first communication tools that allowed for interactive, mass communication—but it was costly, and it didn’t make sense financially for most businesses until the Internet became more widespread.

1980s: Bulletin Boards

By 1982, the world’s first eCommerce company launched. The Boston Computer Exchange (BCE) was an online marketplace for people to buy and sell used computers.

The launch of BCE predates the advent of the World Wide Web, and because of this, the company operated on a dial up bulletin board system.

1990s: The Big Dogs Begin to Emerge

By the mid-90s, the Internet had become an established hub for global communication and connection. In 1995, the most popular web browser at the time, Netscape, had around 10 million users worldwide.

That same year, Jeff Bezos launched Amazon, which at the time functioned as an online book marketplace. The company saw early signs of success—within 30 days of launching, it was shipping internationally to 45 different countries.

A few years later, an online payment system called Confinity—now known as PayPal—was born.

2000s: Monetization Goes Mainstream

When the Internet’s novelty started to wear off around the early 2000s, monetization methods and platforms started to become more sophisticated.

In 2000, Google introduced Google AdWords as an online advertising tool for businesses to promote their products. This ushered in the era of pay-per-click advertising.

Five years later, Amazon introduced its Prime membership package, which offered members perks like free rapid shipping and exclusive discounts. Prime users were (and still are) charged an annual membership fee.

2010s: That Escalated Quickly

By the 2010s, eCommerce rapidly started to pick up speed. In 2010, for the first time in online shopping history, U.S. online sales during Cyber Monday surpassed $1 billion.

Around the same time, the launch of new digital payment tools helped add fuel to the fire. For instance, the launch of Apple Pay in 2014 made it easy for consumers to pay for products directly from their iPhones.

Present day: The Future is Bright

Amidst the global pandemic, businesses were forced to close their brick-and-mortar stores, and lockdown restrictions drove consumers online. By May 2020, eCommerce sales had reached $82.5 billion, a 77% rise year-over-year.

And while the world has started to open up again, online shopping is expected to continue growing and expanding its market share—by 2023, online shopping is expected to make up 22% of total retail sales across the globe.

Marketplace Monopoly

While the future looks promising for online shopping, it’s important to note that historically, online sales haven’t been evenly distributed across the board. In fact, in 2020, just five retailers made up more than 50% of total online retail sales in America.

Vendor% of total U.S. retail eCommerce Sales (2020) Amazon39% Walmart5.8% eBay4.9% Apple3.5% The Home Depot2.1% Other (roughly 1.3 million companies)
44.7%

With the online world constantly evolving, it can be challenging for small to midsize businesses to keep up and remain competitive with the big players. That’s why companies like Logiq exist.

Logiq provides businesses with simplified eCommerce solutions, to help them level up their eCommerce game and stay ahead of the rapidly changing world of online shopping.

The post Timeline: Key Events in the History of Online Shopping appeared first on Visual Capitalist.

If you’re a regular visitor to Visual Capitalist, you know that we’re your home base for data-driven, visual storytelling that helps explain a complex world.

But did you know there’s a way to get even more out of Visual Capitalist, all while helping support the work we do?

New to VC+ in July 2021

VC+ is our members program that gives you exclusive access to extra visual content and insightful special features. It also gets you access to The Trendline, our new members-only graphic newsletter.

So, what is getting sent to VC+ members in the coming weeks?

“Ideas on Paper”

SPECIAL DISPATCH: A Closer Look at 6 Historic Data Visualizations

The charts and infographics we see today are the product of a rich history of experimentation in data visualization.

In this VC+ Special Dispatch, we look back at six historical visualizations for inspiration and to learn more about the context surrounding their creation.

Publishing date: July 7 (Get VC+ to access)

“Overhead Insights: Decoding the Earth’s Surface”

SPECIAL DISPATCH: Identifying Patterns From Space

From space, human influence on our planet is unmistakable.

For World Population Day, we’ll use satellite imagery to explain why estimates of city populations have so much variance.

This visual “tale of two cities” will examine boundaries, settlement patterns, and more.

Publishing date: July 14 (Get VC+ to access)

“VC’s High-Level Guide to Data Viz”

SPECIAL DISPATCH: Behind the Scenes on Content Creation

Visual Capitalist’s vision is to make the world’s information more accessible. This means that how we present data plays a big role in how it’s interpreted.

In this highly requested VC+ Special Dispatch, we’ll walk you through the seven steps we keep in mind when fusing art, data, and storytelling into our world-class visualizations.

We’ll also share tips from our talented team of designers, such as the variety of chart types in their toolkit.

Publishing date: July 21 (Get VC+ to access)

“The News in Charts: July 2021”

SPECIAL DISPATCH: Powerful Charts From News Stories of the Past Month

With the fast-paced news cycle, it can be quite difficult to keep track of all that’s going on.

In this recurring feature, we look back at some of the most newsworthy events of July 2021 across the economy, politics, and society—and provide key takeaways using succinct charts from various media outlets.

Publishing date: July 28 (Get VC+ to access)

The Trendline

PREMIUM NEWSLETTER: Our Weekly Newsletter for VC+ Members

Every week, VC+ members also get our premium graphic newsletter, The Trendline.

With The Trendline, we send you the best visual content, datasets, and insightful reports relating to business that our editors find each week.

Publishing Date: Every Sunday (Get VC+ to access)

More Visuals. More Insight. More Understanding.

Get access to these upcoming features by becoming a VC+ member.

For a limited time, get 25% off, which makes your VC+ membership the same price as a coffee each month:

Get 25% Off VC+ Today 

P.S. – We look forward to sending you even more great visuals and data!

The post What’s New on VC+ in July? appeared first on Visual Capitalist.

Premium members can now read the 2021 Global Opportunities Investment Report: This report looks at over 30 countries, and compares their growth, debt, equity valuations, stability, and currency risks to give investors insight on where to allocate their money globally, or to at least be aware of where some of the macro imbalances are in […]

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Before I get into my usual portfolio review, I have some personal/blog news. I’m excited to say that I am teaming up with Jonathan Davis, editor of the Investment Trusts Handbook and host of the Money Makers weekly podcast. Jonathan has created the Money Makers circle, a premium website that focuses primarily on investment trusts…

Read the full article

The post Q2 2021: A Move To Money Makers appeared first on IT Investor.

Note: This article was co-written with Michael S. Falk and first appeared on the CFA Institute Enterprising Investor Blog.

Climate change remains a key issue to solve in the coming decade. We say decade because any longer may already be too late. 

We all will have to pay a price for burning fossil fuels, but unfortunately the bulk of that price will not be paid by those who burn fossil fuels. It is a classic problem of a negative externality: The profits of an activity — in this case, burning fossil fuels to generate energy — are privatized, while the costs, to human health and the environment, are socialized.

In theory, we know how to deal with these issues. We can either regulate the activity, as President Richard Nixon did with the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reduce air and water pollution in the 1970s. Or we can internalize the costs by putting a price on carbon credits or instituting cap-and-trade programs as is common across Europe and is now being introduced in China.

The problem with these approaches is that they are green sticks. They restrict freedom of enterprise and thus are, let’s say, not very popular with the companies that burn fossil fuels. But that does not mean we care about popularity as much as we care about incentives. Big Oil’s resistance to environmental regulation and carbon pricing in the United States has been enormous, though recent events at Exxon and Shell indicate that it may be losing the fight. 

Nevertheless, the current price of carbon emissions is generally too low, and is at best 50% of what it should be, according to estimates. Carbon emitters spend a lot lobbying to keep that cost well below the threshold required to encourage the fast and effective change that’s needed to avoid climate change’s worst outcomes.

But regulations will have to go even further than carbon pricing. Do we also need rules to help prevent and manage the risk of stranded assets? In a word, yes.

That got us thinking. . . . Instead of using green sticks to force change, why don’t we use green carrots to entice change? After all, these approaches are not mutually exclusive.

One way to introduce green carrots is to create a market for royalties from R&D into renewable and sustainable energy. Both the oil and gas and mining industries are already among the top developers of green technology patents, yet monetizing this research is difficult. A company can either use the knowhow and roll out the technology in-house, or be stuck with it.

Meanwhile, a mining company that builds a new mine can sell that mine’s future production to royalty companies in return for a lump sum payment. For the royalty company, it is the equivalent of buying an annuity financed with the production of the mine. By the way, the greening of so-called dirty industries has perhaps the greatest potential to counteract climate change.

In the biotech space, companies have already specialized in financing intellectual property (IP) in return for a share of the revenues generated from the finished product. Why is there no such system in place for green technology development?

Right now, US taxpayers receive a tax break for investments in oil exploration projects. Why don’t we close this tax loophole and use the money raised to pay super royalties to energy and mining companies that develop green technologies? 

Alternatively, we could support dedicated royalty companies in the green technology space to open a new market. Investors could then invest in the shares of these green tech royalty companies and earn a profit from changing the world instead of saving taxes on burning it.

We could even go a step further and learn from successful venture capital (VC) models in countries like Israel. Today, Israel is one of the world’s leading tech hubs and much of the credit goes to the government-funded business incubator Yozma. In 1993, the government established Yozma by seeding it with $100 million in capital. Yozma supported early-stage ventures in exchange for a stake in the projects of up to 40% — provided private investors financed the rest. After seven years, the investors could pay back the government support from Yozma at face value plus interest. It worked, and in 1998, the VC market in Israel grew large enough for Yozma to be privatized. 

This effectiveness of providing a carrot for investments should not be underestimated. Today, Israel spends more on R&D as a share of GDP than any other nation and is second only to the United States in terms of venture capital investments relative to GDP. Israel used carrots to transform its rusty 1990s economy to a modern high-tech one. Why can’t the United States use the same approach to accelerate its transition from a carbon-based economy to a green one and ask Big Oil to lead the way?

If the carrots are tasty and the incentives are right, oil and mining companies will gladly invest in green technologies. The old adage of doing well while doing good is the way forward for all of us. 

And while we may first think of sticks, we should never forget the appeal of carrots.

Check out the 3 dividend stocks to consider right now. It includes 2 European stocks which I find very interesting right now.

The post July Watchlist – 3 Dividend Stocks to consider appeared first on European Dividend Growth Investor.

Articles Nature cannot be fooled (By Bob Seawright) Having spent years helping clients make this same decision I now face, it would be wrong not to take the advice I have always given them (By Carolyn Gowen) We are not sold that Treasurys have lost their usefulness (By Greg Obenshain) I love getting to tell startups’ stories when they’re still early and undiscovered, and their success isn’t guaranteed (By Packy McCo...

The post These Are the Goods appeared first on The Irrelevant Investor.

Below are the books that we’ve read cover-to-cover from January 2021 to June 2021.  Don’t forget to check out our 2020, 2018, 2017, 2016 and the Dow Theory Letters book lists.

Below are the books that we’ve read cover-to-cover from January 2021 to June 2021.  Don’t forget to check out our 2020, 2018, 2017, 2016 and the Dow Theory Letters book lists.

The biggest (%) rally since 1933 powered to new all time highs this week, now unconfirmed by Dow Theory. Today's gamblers are convinced that printed money is the secret to effortless wealth. Which makes them willing accomplices to record fraud. When their Ponzi scheme explodes they will all be lining up for their own personal Goldman Sachs style Fed bailout, and they will be shocked to learn it's not forthcoming...

The trolls were very active this week on my Twitter feed. I've been tweeting more often lately in lieu of blogging, since there are only so many ways of describing out of control lunacy. In the event, I rankled a few troglodytes who complained I was spamming them. So I did them a favour and blocked them from my Twitter feed. You have to wonder who camps out on someone's site just to inform them they are wrong. Is it not enough to be an all knowing genius? And isn't there copious rivers of bullshit they should be assimilating from their like-minded Borg?

Only a total jackass who's never been through a bear market would tempt fate by assuming this gong show will last forever. Those of us who endured the Dotcom bubble and the housing bubble know what happens once you reach that point of assumed invincibility. Maximum pain. 

Nevertheless, the over-confidence of today's bulls represents the Pyrrhic victory of one way markets. Consensus markets are the inevitable result of centrally planned Ponzi schemes. This market is the perfect adjunct to Globalization - it takes in copious amounts of hard earned money and redistributes it to the ultra wealthy. It's reverse redistribution. Welfare for billionaires.

It's also the perfect recipe for a bidless market. Consensus and markets are two things that are lethal together. This is not a sports competition wherein the goal is to convince as many people as possible over to your "side" - yay our team won. Unless you're one of today's ubiquitous con men whose job is to suck as many people into these markets as possible. From real estate to financial investments, monetizing useful idiots is the new standard "business model".

Now that Reddit pump and dump schemes have been officially sanctioned by Congress, short sellers have been wiped off the map. I showed this chart on Twitter which indicates that the COVID-decimated retail stocks are not only leading this entire rally, but they are exhibiting a rising wedge that is inversely identical to the VIX falling wedge. Hedging is now impossible. This market is now totally out of control. When the selling begins the algos will step aside and there will be no one on the other side of the trade. 

Many of today's critics of Disney markets believe that central banks deserve all of the blame. They seem to forget that even the Fed recently warned that speculation is out of control and now poses a systemic risk to financial markets. 

May 6th, 2021:

"Rising asset prices in the stock market and elsewhere are posing increasing threats to the financial system, the Federal Reserve warned in a report Thursday"

When the entire financial system collapsed in 2008, the public expected the Fed to bailout "the system" at any cost. That has entailed non-stop monetary bailouts for the past decade. In the spirit of Japanification, the illusion of prosperity must be maintained at all cost. Even if it means that an entire society now has the investing acumen of Bernie Madoff. And yet for some reason, pundits who assiduously believe in personal freedom, don't believe in personal responsibility. They also don't question today's ubiquitous mass media subscription model which is capitalism's answer to Pravda. Apparently, the unvarnished truth plays no role in valid decision making. Sugar coated bullshit is all we need. It's the same thing with these anti-vaxxers - they trust McDonald's more than they trust NIH. 

100% Idiocracy.

To solely blame the Fed is to assume that a handful of shall we say oblivious technocrats are the entire scope of today's problem. When in fact the real problem is societal moral collapse on a biblical scale. The magnitude of a bubble is in direct proportion to the number of morons who believe in it. And by that standard this is the biggest bubble in human history. How many pump and dumps have we witnessed just in the past year - Ark funds, Biotechs, Chinese stocks, Cryptos, Gamestop, electric vehicles, SPACs, IPOs. More in one year than we've seen in the past decade. And yet still the masses are unfazed - willing accomplices to record fraud.

Let's take a look at the big "winners" from the first half with focus on the well known names:

Reddit-sponsored AMC cinemas is the leading % gainer. From a low of $2 at the start of the year, to a high of ~$60. The blue arrow shows where it was at the beginning of the pandemic. 

Vaccine biotech Moderna now has a market cap of $90 billion and a price/sales ratio of 35:

Another big winner is Applied Materials which was flat in 2020 and has skyrocketed 200% since November:

But the stock that has been really powering the Nasdaq lately is Nvidia, which is up 170% since the start of the pandemic.

I’ve made 14.88% YTD, basically matching the performance of the S&P 500. I was up 18% a few weeks ago, but Biogen is a volatile beast.

For the account that I track on this blog (which does not represent all of my money, most of which is in the weird portfolio), this is where the account is currently invested:

Note that the percentage gain is from my cost, not the YTD result.

My cash balance that I sat on foolishly for much of 2020 was moved into the weird portfolio on 11/2/20. For those unfamiliar, the weird portfolio is described here.

I’ve owned Biogen since August 2020, Schwab since September 2020, General Dynamics since October 2020, and Intel since January 2021. I hope I’ll own them for many years to come.

I haven’t bought a new stock since my purchase of Intel in January.

Matching the S&P 500 might not seem like that great of an accomplishment, but it’s worth considering that 28% of my portfolio is in long term treasuries & gold (treasuries & gold represent 40% of the weird portfolio).

Treasuries & gold are a drag on my performance right now, but they will come in handy whenever there is a crash and help reduce the drawdown.

Strategy

My current strategy is pretty simple. I’m looking for outstanding companies and I want to own a dozen of them for the long haul.

If I buy an individual stock, I want it to be an wonderful business that I can hold for 5-10 years. I want to acquire those companies at wonderful prices because I believe in an old fashioned concept called ‘margin of safety.’

If I can’t find them, I hold the weird portfolio asset allocation.

Obviously, with the weird portfolio currently at 69% of this account, I am not finding many good opportunities.

The weird portfolio helps me avoid cash drag. It also helps prevents me from buying sub-par opportunities.

If I had 70% of my portfolio in cash earning 0%, then I would be tempted to buy outstanding companies at not-so-outstanding prices. I’d also be tempted to buy junky companies at wonderful prices, which I previously struggled with.

Knowing that I’m in the weird portfolio helps me avoid these temptations. I’m confident I’ll earn about 5-8% in this asset allocation and I’ll lose less than the market whenever it goes through one of its temper tantrums.

Portfolio Activity

I’m proud of this quarter because I didn’t do much of anything. I reduced Schwab in Q1. All I did this quarter is move that cash into the weird portfolio.

In terms of activity within the portfolio, the main noteworthy event was the approval of aducanumab by the FDA. After the approval, Biogen ran up from $267 to $414. My overall portfolio was up 18%. Now, the stock is $348. Go home, Mr. Market, you’re drunk.

I’ve held Biogen since August 2020. I’ll keep holding it for a long period of time.

The way I see it, Biogen has an excellent track record of developing high-margin drugs. They have a wide research pipeline. Over time, they’ll develop new blockbuster drugs. Those drugs will work their way through the lifecycle: initial surge, maturity, and then decline. It takes about 8 years. As drugs decline, other drugs will be in different stages of the process.

I think Biogen will continue to develop high-margin drugs as the years go on.

Biogen is an excellent company for the long term with or without aducanumab.

I’ll simply ignore the CNBC-addicted chart-watching stock junkie drama – i.e., It might not be approved! It’s approved! Congress might put in price controls! Stock up! Stock down!

Eh, whatever. Talk to me in 10 years.

I’ve been able to look at the volatility of the stocks I own and simply ignore it. I’ll sell them if they get to be too big a percent of my portfolio, if they become absurdly overvalued, or if their moat erodes.

I’ve found I like this approach a lot more than diving in and out of stocks in value-oriented swing trades like I used to – worrying about whether the company was executing or failing, worrying about the vagaries of the economic cycle, etc.

I really enjoy not worrying about anything.

The Hunt

While I have most of this account in the weird portfolio, I’m looking for outstanding companies. I document this search on my substack.

In the last quarter, I didn’t dig into as many companies I would prefer. I’ve been a bit busy. I was promoted at work and a job promotion is a real drag on time that could be spent having fun & learning about companies.

That said, I did find a few to add to my watchlist:

Cerner

Waste Management

Church & Dwight

Fastenal

All of these are outstanding firms, but they are currently at bad prices.

I also took a look at Becton Dickinson. On the surface, this looked like it fits my definition of a wonderful company, but I concluded that it was not.

So far, this is the list of companies I’ve evaluated and deemed them to be ‘wonderful’ and worthy of being held for years:

As you can see, none of them are quite at a compelling price relative to their history. In absolute terms, most are not at a compelling free cash flow yield, either.

I’ll wait, continue to watch this list, and I’ll be interested when they’re at an excellent absolute free cash yield and their multiples are cheap relative to their history. Before pouncing, I’ll also re-evaluate and see if they’re still ‘wonderful.’

I hope to build this list up to about 100 companies and follow them closely, waiting for the opportunity to buy at a compelling price.

I’ll buy with the margin of safety, and then hopefully hold for 5-10 years.

I suspect this will turn into a ‘when it rains it pours’ situation and many will be a fat pitch at the same time.

Whenever the rain is pouring, I’ll know exactly what I want to own. In December 2018 and March 2020, I ran stock screens trying to see what was cheap. Then, I’d use the screen to research companies. I also wasn’t in the best emotional mindset because I had just lost a bunch of money and was hoping to ‘make it up’ with some good trades.

Next time, I’ll know exactly what I want to own. The work will have been done before the crash and not during the crash while I was in a bad emotional state. This seems like a better strategy than scrambling during the crash while in a lousy emotional state.

Random

I read three great books this quarter.

I read Rob Lowe’s book “Stories I Only Tell My Friends” and absolutely loved it. He has a fascinating life story. I could relate to Rob’s story of excess in his ’20s and sobriety thereafter. Interestingly, Rob and I got sober at the same age – 26. For me, 20-26 I was in the mindset of ‘I can goof off now, I’m young’ and around 26 I came to the realization ‘If I do this for the rest of my life, my life is going to turn into a wreck.’ It features some hilarious and compelling stories. I often smiled and laughed out loud while reading this book.

I also enjoyed JL Collin’s “A Simple Path to Wealth.” I don’t invest in market cap weighted indexes like he recommends, but I really liked his writing style and approach to saving. The concept of an “FU fund” and avoidance of debt is something I completely agree with. I also agree with the concept of finding an investing approach where you can ignore market volatility. For him, that’s market cap weighted index funds. For me, it’s the weird portfolio and positions in outstanding companies.

Another fun one was “Richer Wiser Happier” by William Green. It featured profiles with great investors and their approach to life. For me, the most compelling person in the book was Arnold Van Den Berg. Arnold survived the holocaust and emerged from that to build a great life. To me, he was the most compelling person featured and his story is inspiring. It’s absolutely incredible what he was able to achieve in life from tough origins and then thrive in a tough business for decades.

Bill Brewster featured Arnold on his podcast. Bill’s podcast is top notch and I think the interview with Arnold has been the absolute crown jewel of the entire series. There is so much you can learn from Arnold, particularly when it comes to mindset and psychology.

As most of you know, I’m a nerd’s nerd and a Trekkie. I caught this great documentary up for free on Youtube. It’s William Shatner interviewing everyone who played a Captain on the different incarnations of Star Trek.

Additionally, I got back on Twitter. I took some extreme measures to control my usage/addiction. I put my two factor on a flip phone number and deleted the app on my smartphone. Therefore, the only time I can look at it is if I’m sitting in front of my desktop in my office.

I also restrict my feed to some carefully curated lists, free from macro speculation and the siren song of Mr. Market who has been on what appears drug-fueled manic binge that will result in a significant damage bill from a hotel.

Anyway, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to quit Twitter, but hopefully I can control it a bit better.

Music wise, I uncovered this gem. I love that they took a great song from 1992 and made it sound like it came out in 1982.

PLEASE NOTE: The information provided on this site is not financial advice and it is for informational and discussion purposes only. Do your own homework. Read the full disclaimer.

The female CEOs on this year’s Fortune 500 just broke three all-time records While these achievements are notable, they’re only part of the story. Having a total of 41 women chief executives amounts to female leadership for just 8.1% of the Fortune 500. Says Lorraine Hariton, CEO of the gender equality organization Catalyst, “We need to tell the optimistic—but not exuberant— story around what’s h...

The post This Week in Women appeared first on The Belle Curve.

Cambria Fund Profile Series – Cambria Shareholder Yield ETFs (SYLD) (FYLD) (EYLD)     Host: Meb Faber is Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Cambria Investment Management. Meb has authored numerous books, whitepapers and blog posts, and is the host of The Meb Faber Show podcast. Date Recorded: 6/07/2021 Run-Time: 25:44 To listen to the […]

The post Cambria Fund Profile Series – Cambria Shareholder Yield ETFs (SYLD) (FYLD) (EYLD) appeared first on Meb Faber Research - Stock Market and Investing Blog.

Added to: BDX CRM UGI NOV RGLD DEI

The first time I heard the term “V-bottom” was in 2013. A V-bottom is when stocks go straight down and come straight back up as if the fall was just a figment of our imagination. The idea that stocks could do this cemented itself in the fall of 2014, during the ebola virus scare. The S&P 500 fell 7.5% in 19 sessions. It took just 11 days to erase those losses. Stocks have always been volatile. There were ...

The post Stock Market Fragility appeared first on The Irrelevant Investor.

This was probably the most common question I got for about a decade when I told people that I was working not only in the same job as my wife but literally on the desk opposite to her. We were together 24/7 sharing both our professional and our private lives.

The honest answer to this question is obviously that I am such a nice person and such an admirable and intelligent professional that everybody wants to be around me all the time to benefit from my wisdom. But usually, I gave the politically correct answer that we share many of the same interests and simply get along very well with each other.

Yet, most people I talked to about this subject thought that living and working together is likely to be detrimental for the relationship since it provides additional stress, blurs the line between professional and private life, or simply doesn’t allow either partner to have a life on their own. But looking at the detailed survey answers of German households in a series of initiatives indicate that these fears are not only unfounded but that living and working together may be better for people. The average satisfaction with life, work, and income of people who work with their partner or at least work in the same profession as their partner is somewhat higher than for people who have a partner working in a different field.

Life satisfaction of couples with and without work link

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Source: Hennecke and Hetschko (2021)

A deeper analysis of the answers given to life satisfaction surveys reveals that the key driver behind this increased life satisfaction is the better understanding of the challenges the partner faces in his or her job and the better support a partner can give on a daily basis. If your partner works in the same job as you do or even in the same office as my wife and I used to, you tend to have a wingman who understands your frustrations sometimes without needing an explanation. 

This emotional support and understanding as a driving force for higher life satisfaction also mean that people in highly skilled or specialised jobs benefit more from a partner who has a work link. My wife and I used to work in finance, though by now, my wife has decided to do something useful with her career and became a garden designer. But we both have university degrees and worked in jobs that require a fair bit of training and experience. So, we benefitted from our work link quite substantially. 

We have friends who are both professional ballet dancers (by now retired) and married. They both told us that they would hesitate to date someone outside the ballet world because it is impossible to understand for outsiders the physical and mental stress involved in this job. And similar to my wife and I, they appreciated the support and understanding they received from their partner during the practice sessions and performances.

Finally, there is another driver behind the increased life satisfaction of people who have a partner in the same job. In general, the lower income partner (typically the woman) benefits more from this work link. This is driven by two factors. First, the more experienced partner can be a mentor to the less experienced one, and second, the partner with the lower income has a better benchmark for a fair salary. As a result, the gender wage gap in partnerships with a work link is smaller than the wage gap in partnerships without such a link. 

This brings me to today’s top tip: If you are an employer, think about hiring husband and wife teams. They tend to be happier with their jobs and lives, which means they are more productive and miss work less often. And you can reduce the gender pay gap in your company which is something that investors increasingly pay attention to.

Here’s a little thought exercise. If a person makes $200,000 a year, do they have more in common with the person making $50,000 or the person making $2,000,000? 2,000,000 is ten times more than 200,000, and 200,000 is only four times more than 50,000. So there’s your answer, right? Wrong. Even though the dollar amounts might be closer, the lifestyle is not. A person making $200,000 has way more in common with ...

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