States Should Try Harder To Draw Talent

Harsimony

Attracting scientific, engineering, and business talent from across the world has been a key component of the success of the U.S. and other developed nations in the past. Today, high earnings opportunities and a prestigious higher education system makes the U.S. an attractive destination for high skilled immigrants.

Having more talent accelerates economic growth, increases innovation, and helps support an aging population, which means that encouraging high skilled immigration is a good policy for these reasons alone.

But attracting talent is also a peaceful way to handle authoritarian regimes. The U.S. already draws top talent from enemies like China, Russia, and Iran to universities in the U.S. But oftentimes these high skilled immigrants return to their country of origin, not because they prefer to leave the U.S., but because they cannot get a work visa. Doesn’t it seem strange that the U.S. is training talented students and then forcing…

View original post 449 more words

The Pleasure of Reading

On the Wealth of Nations

Barataria - The work of Erik Hare

The rapid pace of change has created a world filled with excitement and energy. At the same time, it’s created a world filled with anxiety and fear. At the intersection of both of these is hatred, distrust, disrespect, and every other force you can think of which can divide people.  Rather than bring us together, closeness has us running to define boxes to hide in, regardless of how small.

The great force which should unite but instead often confuses and separates is the driving force of our time: technology. That one simple word is the savior and excuse all at the same time. But what is it, really?

View original post 1,754 more words

Industrial Arts

Barataria - The work of Erik Hare

If you have any fear for the future of America, visit a FIRST Robotics League competition. Your worries will simply melt away.

Three days with my son’s team (2491 No Mythic) at the Northstar Regionals, where we were knocked out in the Finals, constantly percolated with passion, grace, and ingenuity. The 800 plus high-schoolers in Mariucci Arena, and another 800 next door in Williams Arena, redefined competition beyond the unique sport that is something like hockey with robots. These kids make things happen and realize their visions together. As enthusiastically as they learned by doing, however, their drive showed that something might be missing from their school experience.

Call it shop class, call it “technical education”, use whatever words you want. These are the citizens that will make the world of tomorrow in their image, if only they have the tools to do it. That cries out for…

View original post 713 more words

Geoeconomics

Barataria - The work of Erik Hare

In a world connecting in new ways, it logically follows that some nations are working with great clarity and unity to make use of these connections for political goals. It is also reasonable that new tools for connecting the methods and message of these tools can be found to increase understanding and transparency for this process.

The book War by Other Means: Geoeconomics and Statecraftby Robert D. Blackwill is important for many reasons, primarily in how it describes how economics can be used to move forward the political goals of developing nations. It is, however, very dense and at times difficult to follow. It is also, as its title suggests, centered on the Industrial National model of a previous generation.

Thank goodness the most relevant parts of this have been brought forward in a fabulous youtube production that is less of a TED talk and more of a quick…

View original post 794 more words

What You Exported Matters: Persistence in Productive Capabilities across Two Eras of Globalization

Developing Economics

This blog was first published on the Rebuilding Macroeconomics website.

By Isabella Weber, Tom Westland and Maya McCollum

“The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep…” This was how John Maynard Keynes described the globalisation of the Belle Epoque before the First World War. London, and by extension Britain, was at the centre of the world economy: not just a global manufacturing powerhouse, but also the ruler of a vast colonial domain upon which the sun famously never set. The global division of labour was stark: Britain and other Western nations largely produced manufactured goods. But they also exported a whole range of temperate agricultural goods like wheat, beef and barley. Elsewhere in the European colonial empires, products…

View original post 934 more words

Debunking the ‘Free Market Miracle’: How industrial policy enabled Chile’s export diversification

Developing Economics

Assessing industrial policies in Chile remains a rather contentious and divisive topic. Chile has long been held up as an almost‐textbook example of the success of ‘letting the market work’, as there was a broad agreement among mainstream economists that Chile has largely succeeded in promoting strong and stable growth because it has embraced free market policies. At first glance, this may seem believable. Afterall, Chile has one of the fastest growth rates in Latin America since its neoliberal turn in the 1970s. Despite the continuing significance of copper, it has also managed to diversify into other sectors and acquire new competitive advantages between the 1960s and 1990s. The dominant view sustains that the successful emergence of new competitive sectors in Chile’s export basket are the result of four decades of commitment to liberalization and free market policies. However, this post, which is based a recent study, shows that…

View original post 1,424 more words

A fiscal mess

HOLLOW