In 2017, the US restaurant industry generated about $560 billion in annual revenue. By comparison, the movie industry generates some $30 billion a year. Food, and eating out, is a big business.

A recent paper by Joel Waldgogel of the University of Minnesota has tried to estimate the "implicit cuisine trade" associated with this industry. To do this, he used restaurant data from TripAdvisor and sales figures from Euromonitor.

Domestic consumption of a foreign cuisine was considered an "import." And foreign consumption of a domestic cuisine was considered an "export." Here's what he discovered (graph from the Economist):

Italy is, by far, the biggest net "exporter." And the US is the biggest net "importer." If you exclude fast food, the US "deficit" balloons to approximately $140 billion.

I guess everybody does really love Italian food. For the full paper, click here.

Global household wealth is currently estimated at about $360 trillion, according to Credit Suisse's 2019 Global Wealth Report. This represents an increase of about $9 trillion (~2.6%) from 2018-2019.

Over the last decade, much of this growth in household wealth has come from two countries: the United States and China. 40% of the world's US dollar millionaires reside in the United States, and China now has the second highest number of dollar millionaires. (If there are any curious Canadians reading this, Canada represents 3% of the world's total.)

The number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals -- individuals with a net worth greater than $50 million -- exhibits a similar pecking order. The US is by far the most dominant.

Of course, dollar millionaires represent a small percentage of the world's total population. Credit Suisse estimates that there are about 5.1 billion adults in the world. About 56.6% have a net worth under $10,000 and about 0.9% (okay, 1%) are millionaires. This 1% controls/owns about 44% of global wealth. Thinking back to figure 7 (above), consider this math: 50% of the world's millionaires are now in the US and China.

Fluctuations do happen, however. Australia lost some 124,000 millionaires last year largely because of a (-6%) drop in home prices, which tends to correlate pretty closely to the real asset part of household balance sheets. Australia shed about $443 billion in household wealth since 2018, making it the biggest loser in Credit Suisse's report.

The other thing that you may find interesting from this report is the wealth/GDP ratio that they use. Household wealth and GDP tend to correlate. But the ratio of wealth to GDP also has a tendency to increase as a country develops. This makes sense because things like the rule of law and access to capital tend to increase people's willingness to invest/borrow. But in developed countries, it could also be a signal for asset inflation.

If you'd like to download a PDF of the full wealth report, click here.

Note: Credit Suisse's definition of household wealth is your typical net worth calculation: assets (financial assets and real assets) minus liabilities. For most people, the real asset part is principally housing.

Charts: Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2019

Applications to American business schools, including MBA programs, have fallen for five straight years according to this recent WSJ article.

Compared to last year, business school applications to US schools are down about 9.1%; whereas they have been rising in other parts of the world. If you look at the change in applications from international students, the drop is even more significant -- about 13.7%.

Here are two charts from the WSJ:

There are a couple of possible explanations for this. Tech is/has been hot. I would imagine that space has been absorbing many people who would have historically gone to do an MBA.

But perhaps more significantly, stricter immigration policies are making it harder for international students to come to the US. At the same time, top tier alternatives are emerging around the world, such as in China.

China exports more business school students than any other country and they are by far the largest international student base in the US. But the numbers are coming down. At the peak in 2015, the US issued nearly 275,000 student visas to people from China. By 2017, that number had more than halved to 112,817.

Out of curiosity, I decided to look up the class profile for the most recent Rotman MBA cohort (my alma mater). 70% of the class was born outside of Canada. That's not surprising.

Charts: WSJ