On the economics of Traveller... this is a topic in which I will as a rule not comment because I am an economics prof, so I get enough of that in RL (disclaimer: I am a *micro*economist, not a *macro*economist, so it is not really my field anyway). However, I thought that the academically-oriented TMLers might enjoy reading a tongue-in-cheek research paper written by Nobel-prize-winner Paul Krugman titled "The Theory of Interstellar Trade" (I kid you not), written when he was a lowly assistant. The paper was eventually published in a serious journal (economists do have a sense of humor, sort of).

 

Find it here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465-7295.2009.00225.x/epdf

 

If that does not work (not sure whether it is open access access), you can find the original typewritten paper here https://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/interstellar.pdf and a more reader-friendly transcript here: http://www.standupeconomist.com/pdf/misc/interstellar.pdf