BradDeLongsFiveQuestions

BradDeLong asks five interesting and relevant questions about

the medium term economic future.

His article and responses are here : http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/archives/001479.html

But I'll paraphrase them

• 1) What should we conclude from a growth in US productivity during the current recessesion?

• 2) Why are there differences in productivity in the US and Europe, especially in the IT indusrtries

• 3) How will the current intellectual property wars be resolved?

• 4) What is the size and salience of our current industrial revolution compared to past industrial revolutions?

• 5) The developing world: what does the forthcoming transformation of the service sector into a tradeables sector mean for the world economy?

To which his answers are :

• 1) US productivity is still rising ...

• 2) Europe either can't or won't restructure to take advantage of productivity increases that IT makes available. Critics point out that a different productivity measures show a much lower gap. (See also DemographicsAndTheDustbinOfHistory)

• 3) It would be economically advantageous to rethink IP, but current IP holders and their practices are more likely to win (ProductStrategy)

• 4) "Our modern leading sectors have ten times the technological-revolutionary relative salience of the leading sectors of the classic British industrial revolution."

• 5) Service jobs will get outsourced to countries which speak appropriate languages. ": if Algerians are not allowed to grow citrus and export it to Europe, they will be able to process French-language documents" This will benefit the developing world greatly. (OffShoring / OutSourcing)

See also de Long's six historical questions : http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movabletype/2003archives/001879.html

See also ClassWarBetweenProductsAndServices

CategoryEconomics