Why Halloween Costumes Used to Be Terrible

There are many different ways that economists attempt to illustrate how much wealthier we have become over the past few decades and centuries. From the crude yet popular measurement of increasing GDP per capita to showing just how cell phones have miniaturized from their earliest days to become more powerful than the supercomputers of even a decade ago, there's no shortage of ways to show that humanity today is wealthier than ever before.

But this season I would like to suggest a different proxy for our increasing wealth: the dramatic improvement of Halloween costumes.