TechPlus+ | Technology & Development Redux
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Relation between ICT Adoption and State Capacity
Read more: Relation between ICT Adoption and State CapacityIntroduction According to many observers, the rapid diffusion of new ICTs such as the Internet and social media has empowered people worldwide. Today, social media users, for example, have direct access to the public sphere and can thus launch campaigns to sway public opinion. These new channels have given voice to millions of people who…
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More on Measuring Human Development
Read more: More on Measuring Human DevelopmentIn a previous blog, I examined the relationship between GDP and the Human Development Index (HDI), which the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has published annually for the last 25 years. In this post, I want to dive deeper into the latter and explore some of its potential policy implications. HDI components and calculation The HDI…
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Is Postcapitalism on its way?
Read more: Is Postcapitalism on its way?For most people, including many well-known economists, the 2007 global economic crisis was a rude awakening: It seemed to have come out of nowhere, but it certainly managed to bring deep pain to billions of people – and pockets. Soon thereafter, calls to revisit Marx’s theory of capitalism became frequent from both left and right.…
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Saving Capitalism – or Democracy?
Read more: Saving Capitalism – or Democracy?Few will doubt both globalization and technology are putting many people under economic stress. Symptoms of this in the US and other industrialized countries include raising inequality, stagnant wages, less opportunities and decreased social mobility, and little to no improvement in living standards for most. Together, they have created an environment characterized by widespread distrust…
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State Formation in Latin America
Read more: State Formation in Latin AmericaContrary to accepted views, Latin American(LA) States are still comparatively incipient and have been so since independence in the 19th Century. But they have also managed to avoid large-scale and continuous wars between them, in sharp contrast with Western European states. How can we explain this apparent paradox while taking into account regional differences among…
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Measuring Well-Being and Human Development
Read more: Measuring Well-Being and Human DevelopmentGDP: Thanks, but no thanks A recent issue of The Economist had a couple of articles (plus the issue’s cover) on measuring prosperity, defined as advancing living standards over time. Nowadays, gross domestic product, GDP,1 We can also include here GDP’s sibling, Gross National Income or GNI. is king for measuring such progress. However, The…
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Economics Rules or Economics Rule?
Read more: Economics Rules or Economics Rule?After the 2008 crisis, many observers expected changes of some sort in current economic thinking and academic teaching. After all, most mainstream economists never saw the crisis coming – with some even claiming the era of crises was over. For many non-economists, the crisis demonstrated once again the perils of economics, the “dismal science”. Eight years…
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Technology and Development in History
Read more: Technology and Development in HistoryNowadays, the diffusion pace of technologies on a global scale is unprecedented. This is true for Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) best represented by the Internet (and all its newer platforms) and mobile technologies. Most will also agree that technologies somehow play a decisive role in fostering economic development and economic growth. While that might be true…
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Digital Dividends Déjà Vu
Read more: Digital Dividends Déjà VuBackground The first time I run into the notion of digital dividends was at the end of the last century. At the time, the first dot-com boom still running at full steam, totally unaware of the looming crash. Building on the hype of the new technologies and of the Internet in particular, the G-8 launched…
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A “social” history of Bitcoin?
Read more: A “social” history of Bitcoin?A recent article by one of its lead developers argues that Bitcoin, defined as an experiment, has utterly failed. While the initial concept was to develop a form of digital money that was completely decentralized and autonomous from any bank or institution, today, Bitcoin is controlled by a few people. Besides, Bitcoin technology has now…
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Best Films – 2015
Read more: Best Films – 2015A relatively slow year when it comes to films. Unlike previous, this year I only managed to see 99 films. That is almost 50 films less than last year. I am sure I missed quite a few. Around 700 films are annually released in the US. I probably saw maybe 10% of these, at most.…
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Humans vs. Robots: A False Dilemma?
Read more: Humans vs. Robots: A False Dilemma?Nowadays, autonomous vehicles are all the rage. We even hear that perhaps in a few years cars will make human drivers obsolete. Instead, roads and highways will be filled with vehicles that drive themselves and carry humans as passengers only. We are also informed that such vehicles will increase safety, at least for accidents triggered by…
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Economics and Long Term Ideas
Read more: Economics and Long Term IdeasNo doubt economics has come a long way since the times of Adam Smith almost 250 years ago. If we were to summarize its dynamics of change, we could say that economics has moved from a broad political economy approach to a more narrow and now mainstream focus where mathematics seems to play a vital…
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How the West Came to Rule: Book Review
Read more: How the West Came to Rule: Book ReviewWhat role if any did non-Western nations played in the emergence of the West as a dominant historical force? This seems to be the key question the comprehensive book by Anievas and NIsancioglu attempts to answer. The problem is undoubtedly closely related to that of the emergence of capitalism in Western Europe and the role…
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New Technology and Surveillance: An Odd Couple?
Read more: New Technology and Surveillance: An Odd Couple?Snowden’s revelations had put into evidence the seemingly strong link between new technologies such as the Internet and the capacity of some states to harness it as a tool for massive surveillance in real time. As some had argued, these revelations were not that shocking after all as they only confirmed what many have been…