The Perfect Road Trip For Economics Majors
As you finish up your collegiate career, or just starting to think about what to do this summer if we're being slightly less dramatic, you should take a moment to reflect on what will give you the most hapiness. If you're an Econ Major we have the answer for you -- take a road trip.
While traditional road trips try to hit as many states as possible and check out all the classic American monuments, we thought you'd like to embrace your inner economist and visit the be-all-end-all spots in America for finance and economics. And that's how we arrived at the Ultimate Economics Road Trip Around America.
You'll stop by every major Federal Reserve Bank and every Federal Reserve Bank branch. The trip also includes a stop by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway headquarters, Fort Knox, and Vegas (To check out probability theory in the flesh, obviously). The full list of stops is below the map and if you're interested in how we created it, that's even further down.
But for now, hold on to your laptops and get ready to visit both schools of economic thought as there's no diminishing marginal utility to this field trip.
Click the map to make it interactive or click here.
Full List Of Stops Made In Order
- Federal Reserve Bank Boston - 600 Atlantic Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- Harvard School of Economics - Littauer Center 1805 Cambridge Street Cambridge, MA 02138
- NBER - 1050 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138
- Federal Reserve Bank of New York - 33 Liberty Street, New York, NY
- NYSE - 11 Wall Street, Lower Manhattan, New York City, New York
- Atlantic City - Boardwalk, Atlantic City, New Jersey
- Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia - 10 N. Independence Mall West (N. 6th Street) at Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
- Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Baltimore Branch - 502 S Sharp St, Baltimore, MD 21201
- The US Mint - 801 9th Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20220
- Treasury Building - 1500 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20220
- Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond - 701 E Byrd St, Richmond, VA 23219
- Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Charlotte Branch - 530 E Trade St, Charlotte, NC 28202
- Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Miami Branch - 9100 NW 36th St, Miami, FL 33178
- Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Jacksonville Branch - 800 Water St, Jacksonville, FL 32204
- Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta - 1000 Peachtree Street NE in Midtown Atlanta
- United States Bullion Depository (Fort Knox) - Gold Vault Rd. and Bullion Blvd., Fort Knox, Kentucky
- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Louisville Branch - 101 S 5th St #1920, Louisville, KY 40202
- Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Nashville Branch - 301 Rosa L Parks Ave, Nashville, TN 37203
- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Memphis Branch - 200 N Main St, Memphis, TN 38103
- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Little Rock Branch - Little Rock, Ark. 72201
- Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta New Orleans Branch - 525 St Charles Ave, New Orleans, LA 70130
- Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Houston Branch - 562 Gillette St, Houston, TX 77019
- Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas - 2200 N Pearl St, Dallas, TX 75201
- Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas San Antonio Branch - 402 Dwyer Ave., San Antonio, TX 78204
- Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas El Paso Branch - 301 East Main Street, El Paso, TX 79901
- Vegas - The Strip, Las Vegas, NV
- PIMCO - 50 Newport Center Drive. Newport Beach, CA 92660.
- Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Los Angeles Branch - 950 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90015
- Rand - 1776 Main Street Santa Monica, CA 90401-3208
- Stanford / Silicon Valley - 579 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305
- Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco - 101 Market Street San Francisco, CA 94105
- Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Portland Branch - 1500 SW 1st Ave #100, Portland, OR 97201
- Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Seattle Branch - 2700 Naches Ave SW, Renton, WA 98057
- Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Helena Branch - 100 Neill Ave, Helena, MT 59601
- Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Salt Lake City Branch - 120 S State St, Salt Lake City, UT 84111
- Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Denver Branch - 1020 16th St, Denver, CO 80202
- Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Oklahoma City Branch - 211 N Robinson Ave #300, Oklahoma City, OK 73102
- Berkshire Hathaway - 3555 Farnam St, Omaha, NE 68131
- Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Omaha Branch - 2201 Farnam St, Omaha, NE 68102
- Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City - 1 Memorial Drive. Kansas City MO, 64198.
- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis - 1 Federal Reserve Bank Plaza, St. Louis, MO 63102
- Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis - 90 Hennepin Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55401
- Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago - 230 S La Salle St, Chicago, IL 60604
- Chicago School of Economics - 5757 S. University Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637
- Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Detroit Branch - 1600 E Warren Ave, Detroit, MI 48207
- Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland - E. 6th St. and Superior Ave., Cleveland, Ohio
- Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Cincinnati Branch - 150 E 4th St, Cincinnati, OH 45202
- Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Pittsburgh Branch - 301 Grant St #3000, Pittsburgh, PA 15219
- Pliny Fisk Library of Economics and Finance - Pliny Fisk Library of Economics and Finance, Princeton, NJ
How We Created The Ultimate Economics Road Trip
Academics, including economists, have put a lot of thought into developing algorithms to solve the "Traveling Salesman Problem" -- the optimal way to plan a round trip that makes every stop required. My task was to apply the learnings to our economics field trip.
Like all great scientists, err data journalists, we get to stand on the shoulders of giants or, in this case, software engineers at Google. They've done the heavily lifting in create an algorithm that solves the Traveling Salesman Problem, we just had to normalize the geolocation data for each location and plug it in.
We then plotted the resulting order of locations on the map using Google Maps's built in direction algorithm. And, like magic, the "Ultimate Economics Major Road Trip" was born.
Footnotes
Some code adapted from Randal S. Olson Data analysis and machine learning projects.
