Reuters has an article on a study of the in-game economy of EverQuest II, attempting to compare it with real-world economics. The article is a bit scattered, the most tangible non-conclusion to draw is their assessment of why they observed a 50% spike in inflation in the game over a five month period. "We have seen that kind of volatility during times of war and in developing nations in the real world," says Dmitri Williams, assistant professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication. "Our own economy has turned out to be less stable than we'd all assumed."