Do you expect nasty inflation? That’s how you get nasty inflation.

The consumer price index is out this week, along with a bunch of earning reports that will together show us where the consumer economy has been and where it might be going, since energy prices haven’t calmed down.

We’ll talk about all of it below, and learn about the men who just won a Nobel prize for studying the self-fulfilling prophecies underlying this economy. First though, let’s look at how some colleges are spending money right now. — Tony Wagner, newsletter editor

At Canisius University in Buffalo, New York, a handful of students on campus are known as the Griffluencers. They’re named after the school’s mascot, the golden griffin, and they’re paid to post on the school’s social media accounts.

One of them is 19-year-old Madison Duxbury. She took the job because she wanted to make the school’s accounts more hip. Or, since we are talking about appealing to young people, maybe the better word is “fire.”

“I was like, ‘OK, maybe I can help the school progress more into social media,’” Duxbury said. “Because obviously, being a teen during COVID and then after that, social media has been a huge part of everyone's life.”

One of her videos as a Griffluencer documents a typical day in her life. There’s music in the background, and you see her putting makeup on in the morning, going to anatomy class.

“I wanted to highlight [that] you can take time to yourself,” Duxbury said. “You can meditate. You can read. You can do your nails. You have time to do that while also going to your classes and doing your homework.”

Another of Duxbury’s videos provides a speed tour of the underground tunnels that link different buildings on campus. “If someone has not toured here, they may look at the tunnel video, and be like, ‘Oh this school has tunnels in case there's a really bad snowstorm.’”

Duxbury also seems to understand the internet in a way that only people born after the year 2000 can. For example, sometimes she sees videos where people move their hands in a really animated way, and it feels kind of cringe.

“Very 2021, very dramatic,” she said. “But now, if we overdo it with the hand movements, people are like, ‘That's not what we do anymore.’”

That insight into how to connect with teenagers is one reason colleges hire current students to post. This is less important for, say, big flagship colleges, which have a lot of students posting organically about their school experiences. But for smaller schools that are also competing for a dwindling number of high schoolers, consultants say a strong social media presence is a crucial way to market to teenagers.

“If you’ve got a student that loves the place and wants to share great things about it, then go ahead and see if they're interested in being paid a couple hundred bucks a semester to share their story on social media,” said Jeff Schiffman, a senior strategic leader focused on enrollment and admissions at education consulting firm EAB.

Tapia moved to the United States in 2014 to get a master’s degree, and worked several tech and video game jobs before his visa ran out. He’s been back in Mumbai for nearly a year, his first time in India as a working adult.

He’s one member of a very young, very large workforce that has India on the cusp of an economic golden age. The median age nationwide is 29 years old — 10 years younger than in the United States. We traveled to Mumbai to see one of the world’s fastest-growing economies firsthand, and the hurtles ahead.

American economists Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford won the Nobel prize in economics today for their research in managing economic crises. Their work hinges on regular people, who behave in all kinds of irrational, unpredictable ways and together tilt the economy in directions policymakers might not be able to expect. Here’s a gift link to an explanation from “Marketplace” contributor Stacey Vanek Smith.

We also spoke with a couple Nobel laureate economists on “Marketplace Morning Report” this morning, asking how they felt when they won the nearly million-dollar prize for their research.