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In a new study by researchers at the University of Toledo, toddlers who were given fewer toys played more creatively and were more engaged in their play than those who had many toys available. Moms and dads, this might be the time to remove that chicken robot, mustache plushie, emoji bingo set, and Spider-Man drone from your Amazon shopping cart. I’m sorry. Researchers placed 36 children between the ages of 18 and 30 months in different open play sessions, one with four toys in the room and the other with 16 toys. The toys varied—some were battery-operated, some had wheels, and some were made to teach a concept such as shapes or counting. In the environments with four toys, kids engaged with the toys 108% longer, and played with them in a greater number of ways. Their play was deeper, more sophisticated, more imaginative. When kids were surrounded by lots of toys, they tended to move more frequently from thing to thing to thing. As kids rip open their birthday or holiday gifts with cake-fueled glee, parents brace themselves… Anecdotally, we’ve long known this happens, right? Parents who’ve moved to a new house and haven’t yet opened all their boxes are shocked when their kids play for hours with a random assortment of pots and pans, transforming them hats, drums and podiums. (“Maybe we should just get rid of that giant box marked ‘KIDS’ CRAP,’ eh?”) Caine Monroy probably would have never built an entire arcade out of cardboard at the age of 9 had he owned an arcade. I love watching my four-year-old daughter play delightedly with whatever she happens to find in the junk drawer (don’t judge). Plus, aren’t we all more focused when we’re sitting alone with just a journal and pen rather than in front of 62 open tabs? No one is saying we should ban toys, but simplifying may do a lot of good. If you’re buying (or borrowing) toys, look for ones that are open-ended—blocks, dress-up accessories, little kitchen tools, playdough and toy cars. Put toys in rotation. Have a small, dedicated space for toys (and donate whatever doesn’t fit.) Give the gift of experiences rather than things. Destroy anything that keeps beeping or blinking or has evil strobe-light eyeballs. You can do this. Don’t let the toys win.

There’s no doubt that the U.S. economy is in a boom. The Conference Board is reporting the highest levels of job satisfaction in more than a decade. This is probably because of a tight labor market — the ratio between the unemployment level and the number of job vacancies is at its lowest level in a half-century: Number of unemployed to job opening is at a nearly five-decade low Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nick Bunker at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth A broader measure, the prime-age employment-to-population ratio, is back to 2006 levels. Meanwhile, real gross domestic product growth for the second quarter was just revised up to 4.2 percent. Corporate profits are rising strongly. And investment as a percentage of the economy is at about the level of the mid-2000s boom: Investment as a share of gross domestic product Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Wages are still lagging. But all other indicators show the U.S. economy performing as strongly as at any time since the mid-2000s — and possibly even since the late 1990s. Which raises an interesting question: Why is this boom happening? That’s an almost impossible question to answer. Fundamentally, economists don’t know why booms happen. It’s possible that there’s not even such a thing as a “boom” at all — that this is just how the economy works under normal circumstances, when there isn’t a recession or crisis to throw it off its game. But it is possible to identify some factors that might — with the emphasis on “might” — be contributing to the strength of this economic expansion. The first is low interest rates. The Federal Reserve kept short-term rates at or near zero for almost a decade after the financial crisis, suppressing long-term rates in the process. That in turn lowered borrowing rates for corporations and mortgage borrowers, which tends to juice investment. Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Standard macroeconomic theories hold that low rates increase aggregate demand. Those theories also say that when interest rates are low, fiscal deficits provide an added boost to demand, and deficits have been rising as a result of President Donald Trump’s tax cuts: Federal surplus or deficit as a share of gross domestic product Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis These are what are known as demand-side explanations. Typically, it’s believed that goosing aggregate demand with fiscal and monetary policy will eventually lead to rising inflation. So far, it has risen very slightly but is far from alarming: Personal consumption expenditure core price index (excludes food and fuel) Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis via Bloomberg A third demand-side explanation is what John Maynard Keynes called animal spirits, and what modern-day economists call sentiment — potentially random fluctuations in the optimism and confidence of businesspeople and consumers. There is evidence to support this explanation — small business confidence is at record highs, and consumer confidence also is very strong: Consumer sentiment index Source: University of Michigan A final demand-side explanation is that the current boom is simply the tail end of the long recovery from the Great Recession — consumers and businesses might finally be purchasing the houses and cars that they waited to buy when the recovery was still in doubt. Housing, traditionally the most important piece of business-cycle investment and consumption, is still looking weak, with housing starts below their 50-year average. But business investment might be experiencing the positive effects of stored-up demand. There is also another category of potential explanations, known as supply-side factors. These are things that increase the long-term productive capacity of the economy. One such possibility is that Trump’s tax cuts removed distortions that held back business investment, and that fast growth — and the attendant low unemployment — is the result of the economy’s rapid shift to a higher level of efficiency. A second supply-side explanation is that the boom is being driven by technology. Information technology advances such as machine learning and cloud computing might be driving the investment boom — perhaps also spurring companies to invest in intangible assets such as brands and workers’ skills. Evidence says that this sort of technology-driven boom is rare, but it’s at least theoretically possible. Of course, the boom could be due to none of these factors — or to causes that economists haven’t even identified yet. But as of now, these are the prime suspects. And although it’s very difficult to know, it matters how important each of these factors is, because that gives some insight into how the boom might end — and how it might be prolonged. A demand-side boom probably will end of its own accord. If loose monetary and/or fiscal policy is driving up demand, then it will likely eventually cause inflation to accelerate, prompting a clampdown by the Fed. If animal spirits are responsible, it could lead to over-borrowing and an eventual debt crisis and crash — indeed, corporate debt is looking worrisome, as levels of risky debt rise and credit spreads narrow. A supply-side boom, in contrast, is likely to moderate rather than crash. Any positive effect of tax cuts will eventually dissipate as the economy settles at its new steady state. A technological boom could peter out after a few years, or could even accelerate if new discoveries build on each other. If I were forced to pick one leading explanation for the boom, I would go with animal spirits. Exuberant business sentiment and the build-up of risky corporate debt seem indicative of good times that won’t last. Hopefully that guess will prove wrong. To contact the author of this story: Noah Smith at nsmith150@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Greiff at jgreiff@bloomberg.net

It is 9:00AM in our New York City office, and one of us (Jordan) stops by the fifth-floor kitchen to pick up a free piece of fruit — a healthy perk that Weight Watchers offers its employees. When he arrives, he faces a familiar sight: the bananas are already gone and only the oranges remain. When other hopefuls approach and find the bananas missing, they do not take a free orange. They just walk away. What is wrong with these people? Is there a subculture of orange haters lurking at Weight Watchers?