GLOBAL ECONOMIST

2/22/2018

Can long-term global growth be saved?

Without action, global economic growth will almost halve in the next 50 years. A new McKinsey Global Institute report offers a solution: a dramatic improvement in productivity.

Over the past 50 years, global economic growth was exceptionally rapid. The world economy expanded sixfold. Average per capita income almost tripled. Hundreds of millions of people were lifted out of poverty. Yet unless we can dramatically improve productivity, the next half century will look very different. The rapid expansion of the past five decades will be seen as an aberration of history, and the world economy will slide back toward its relatively sluggish long-term growth rate.

https://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/employment-and-growth/

How the semiconductor industry is taking charge of its transformation

Semiconductors are the unsung heroes of technology, providing high-speed processing power for computers, flat-screen displays, smartphones, and other electronic devices.

But while semiconductor revenues are hitting record levels, recent geographic and product shifts are upending long-standing business plans. Moreover, R&D budgets are rising by about 6 percent annually because of new technological and business challenges, such as increased complexity in coding, testing, and verification.

Three developments in the semiconductor industry—the evolving demand for automotive chips, the availability of new productivity tools, and the growth of China But while semiconductor revenues are hitting record levels, recent geographic and product shifts are upending long-standing business plans. Moreover, R&D budgets are rising by about 6 percent annually because of new technological and business challenges, such as increased complexity in coding, testing, and verification.

Three developments in the semiconductor industry—the evolving demand for automotive chips, the availability of new productivity tools, and the growth of China

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/semiconductors/our-insights/how-the-semiconductor-industry-is-taking-charge-of-its-transformation

Warner Bros: The Making of an American Movie Studio

Behind the scenes at the legendary Warner Brothers film studio, where four immigrant brothers transformed themselves into the moguls and masters of American fantasy

Warner Bros charts the rise of an unpromising film studio from its shaky beginnings in the early twentieth century through its ascent to the pinnacle of Hollywood influence and popularity. The Warner Brothers—Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack—arrived in America as unschooled Jewish immigrants, yet they founded a studio that became the smartest, toughest, and most radical in all of Hollywood.

David Thomson provides fascinating and original interpretations of Warner Brothers pictures from the pioneering talkie The Jazz Singer through black-and-white musicals, gangster movies, and such dramatic romances as Casablanca, East of Eden, and Bonnie and Clyde. He recounts the storied exploits of the studio’s larger-than-life stars, among them Al Jolson, James Cagney, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, James Dean, Doris Day, and Bugs Bunny. The Warner brothers’ cultural impact was so profound, Thomson writes, that their studio became “one of the enterprises that helped us see there might be an American dream out there.”

David Thomson is a film critic and historian, and the author of more than twenty books, including The Biographical Dictionary of Film, now in its sixth edition, and Why Acting Matters.

yalebooks.yale.edu

Vigée Le Brun

A sumptuous monograph of the renowned portraitist and friend of Marie Antoinette in Revolutionary France

Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842) was one of the greatest 18th-century French painters and among the most important women artists of all time. Celebrated for her expressive portraits of French royalty and aristocracy, especially of her patron and friend Marie Antoinette, she exemplified artistic success and personal resourcefulness in an age when women were rarely allowed either. Forced to flee France during the Revolution, Le Brun traveled throughout Europe for sixteen years, painting royal and noble sitters in the courts of Naples, Russia, Austria, Poland, and Germany. She returned to France in 1805, under the reign of Emperor Napoleon I, where her artistic career continued to flourish.

Alongside 85 of her finest paintings and drawings from international museums and collections, this handsome volume details Vigée Le Brun’s story, portraying a talented and intelligent artist who was able to negotiate a shifting political and geographic landscape. Providing further context for the life of this extraordinary individual, essays by international experts address topics such as her travels in exile and the position of women artists in the Salons.

Joseph Baillio is an independent scholar in New York. Katharine Baetjer is curator, Department of European Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Paul Lang is deputy director and chief curator, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

An important study of the relationship between technology, skills, and economic inequality that answers some of the most pressing economic questions of our time

Today’s great paradox is that we feel the impact of technology everywhere—in our cars, our phones, the supermarket, the doctor’s office—but not in our paychecks. In the past, technological advancements dramatically increased wages, but for three decades now, the median wage has remained stagnant. Machines have taken over much of the work of humans, destroying old jobs while increasing profits for business owners. The threat of ever-widening economic inequality looms, but in Learning by Doing, James Bessen argues that increased inequality is not inevitable.

Workers can benefit by acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary to implement rapidly evolving technologies; unfortunately, this can take years, even decades. Technical knowledge is mostly unstandardized and difficult to acquire, learned through job experience rather than in the classroom. As Bessen explains, the right policies are necessary to provide strong incentives for learning on the job. Politically influential interests have moved policy in the wrong direction recently. Based on economic history as well as analysis of today’s labor markets, his book shows a way to restore broadly shared prosperity.

James Bessen, an economist, is a lecturer at Boston University Law School. He was founder and CEO of a software company that developed the first desktop publishing program.
yalebooks.yale.edu

Monet the Collector

Claude Monet (1840–1926) was the founder of French Impressionism and remains one of the world’s best-known and most beloved painters. His works are on view in many of the finest museums, and details of his storied life are well documented. Less well known are Monet’s activities as an art collector; Monet as Collector is a sumptuously illustrated volume that traces this history, and in the process reconstitutes the artist’s private collection. The masterpieces he assembled throughout his life form an outstanding, unique ensemble, one that has never before been analyzed in its entirety. The collection includes paintings, drawings, and sculptures by such artists as Delacroix, Corot, Boudin, Jongkind, Manet, Renoir, Caillebotte, Cézanne, Morisot, Pissarro, Rodin, and Signac, and offers a new kind of insight into the artistic tastes and vision of this legendary artist.

Marianne Matheiu is assistant to the director and head of collections at the Musée Marmottan Monet. Dominique Lobstein is an independent art historian.
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300232622/monet-collector

Managing the Wild

Drawn from ecologist Charles M. Peters’s thirty-five years of fieldwork around the globe, these absorbing stories argue that the best solutions for sustainably managing tropical forests come from the people who live in them. As Peters says, “Local people know a lot about managing tropical forests, and they are much better at it than we are.”

With the aim of showing policy makers, conservation advocates, and others the potential benefits of giving communities a more prominent conservation role, Peters offers readers fascinating backstories of positive forest interactions. He provides examples such as the Kenyah Dayak people of Indonesia, who manage subsistence orchards and are perhaps the world’s most gifted foresters, and communities in Mexico that sustainably harvest agave for mescal and demonstrate a near-heroic commitment to good practices. No forest is pristine, and Peters’s work shows that communities have been doing skillful, subtle forest management throughout the tropics for several hundred years.

Charles M. Peters is Kate E. Tode Curator of Botany at the New York Botanical Garden and professor of tropical ecology (adjunct) at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

The Enlightened Economy An Economic History of Britain 1700-1850

This book focuses on the importance of ideological and institutional factors in the rapid development of the British economy during the years between the Glorious Revolution and the Crystal Palace Exhibition. Joel Mokyr shows that we cannot understand the Industrial Revolution without recognizing the importance of the intellectual sea changes of Britain’s Age of Enlightenment.

In a vigorous discussion, Mokyr goes beyond the standard explanations that credit geographical factors, the role of markets, politics, and society to show that the beginnings of modern economic growth in Britain depended a great deal on what key players knew and believed, and how those beliefs affected their economic behavior. He argues that Britain led the rest of Europe into the Industrial Revolution because it was there that the optimal intersection of ideas, culture, institutions, and technology existed to make rapid economic growth achievable. His wide-ranging evidence covers sectors of the British economy often neglected, such as the service industries.

Joel Mokyr is Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences and professor of economics and history, Northwestern University, and Sackler Professor at the Eitan Berglas School of Economics, Tel Aviv University.

https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300189513/enlightened-economy

A Little History of Economics

A lively, inviting account of the history of economics, told through events from ancient to modern times and the ideas of great thinkers in the field

What causes poverty? Are economic crises inevitable under capitalism? Is government intervention in an economy a helpful approach or a disastrous idea? The answers to such basic economic questions matter to everyone, yet the unfamiliar jargon and math of economics can seem daunting. This clear, accessible, and even humorous book is ideal for young readers new to economics and for all readers who seek a better understanding of the full sweep of economic history and ideas.

Economic historian Niall Kishtainy organizes short, chronological chapters that center on big ideas and events. He recounts the contributions of key thinkers including Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and others, while examining topics ranging from the invention of money and the rise of agrarianism to the Great Depression, entrepreneurship, environmental destruction, inequality, and behavioral economics. The result is a uniquely enjoyable volume that succeeds in illuminating the economic ideas and forces that shape our world.

Niall Kishtainy, former economic policy advisor to the UK government and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, is guest teacher, department of economic history, London School of Economics, and author of The Economics Book and Economics in Minutes. He lives in London, UK.

yalebooks.yale.edu

Learning by Doing The Real Connection between Innovation, Wages, and Wealth

James Bessen, an economist, is a lecturer at Boston University Law School. He was founder and CEO of a software company that developed the first desktop publishing program.

yalebooks.yale.edu

True Cost Economics

True cost economics is an economic model that seeks to include the cost of negative externalities into the pricing of goods and services. Proponents of this type of economic system feel products and activities that directly or indirectly cause harmful consequences to living beings and/or the environment should be taxed accordingly to reflect their hidden costs.

Read more: True Cost Economics https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/truecosteconomics.asp#ixzz57fMQj7pz
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Economic Man

Economic man refers to an idealized human being who acts rationally and with complete knowledge, who seeks to maximize personal utility or satisfaction. Economic man is an assumption of many economic models, and is also known as homo economicus.

Read more: Economic Man https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/economic-man.asp#ixzz57fGfPKvR
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Rally

What is a 'Rally'?

A rally is a period of sustained increases in the prices of stocks, bonds or indexes. This type of price movement can happen during either a bull or a bear market, when it is known as either a bull market rally or a bear market rally, respectively. However, a rally will typically follow a period of flat or declining prices.

BREAKING DOWN 'Rally'

A rally is caused by a significant increase in demand resulting from a large influx of investment capital into the market. This leads to the bidding up of prices. The length or magnitude of a rally depends on the depth of buyers along with the amount of selling pressure they face. For example, if there is a large pool of buyers but few investors willing to sell, there is likely to be a large rally. If, however, the same large pool of buyers is matched by a similar amount of sellers, the rally is likely to be short and the price movement minimal.

Too Big To Fail

What is 'Too Big To Fail'?

"Too big to fail" describes the concept whereby a business has become so large that a government will provide assistance to prevent its failure because not doing so would have a disastrous ripple effect throughout the economy. If a large company fails, companies that rely on it for portions of their income might also be extinguished along with the employment they provide. Therefore, if the cost of a bailout is less than the cost of the failure to the economy, a government may decide a bailout is the most cost-effective solution.

How does Twitter make money?

Twitter (TWTR) is a social media company that provides a network connecting users to people, information, ideas, opinions, and news. The company's services include live commentary, live connections and live conversations through mobile devices and the Internet. The company can also be used as a marketing tool for businesses.

How Twitter Makes Money

Twitter earns 86 percent or more of its revenue from advertising. In the fiscal year 2017, Twitter posted an advertising revenue of $2.1 billion, which was a six percent decrease of what the social media site brought in during the same time in 2016.

Twitter uses promoted tweets, promoted accounts and promoted trends. Twitter also sells promoted tweets to marketers, and these then appear in users' Twitter feeds. The company creates tailored advertising opportunities by using an algorithm to make sure promoted tweets make it into the right users' timelines. Promoted accounts are those paid for by an advertiser that Twitter places in targeted users' "Who to Follow" list.

Bridgewater's Dalio Sees 70 pct Chance of Recession Before 2020

Billionaire investor Ray Dalio, who founded world's largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, thinks there is a relatively high chance the U.S. economy will stumble into a recession before the next presidential election in 2020.

Dalio said the U.S. economy is not currently in a bubble. But he reasoned that it might not take long to get there and then to move on to a "bust" phase.

"I think we are in a pre-bubble stage that could go into a bubble stage ... The probability of a recession prior to the next presidential election would be relatively high, maybe 70 percent, Daliosaid during an appearance at the Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics.

Dalio, whose fund invests some $160 billion, stepped down from the hedge fund's day-to-day operations nearly a year ago, but his views on markets and the economy are still very closely followed.

Blockchains and Bitcoin

The blockchain is perhaps the main technological innovation of Bitcoin. Bitcoin isn’t regulated by a central authority. Instead, its users dictate and validate transactions when one person pays another for goods or services, eliminating the need for a third party to process or store payments. The completed transaction is publicly recorded into blocks and eventually into the blockchain, where it’s verified and relayed by other Bitcoin users. On average, a new block is appended to the blockchain every 10 minutes, through mining.

Based on the Bitcoin protocol, the blockchain database is shared by all nodes participating in a system. Upon joining the network, each connected computer receives a copy of the blockchain, which has records, and stands as proof of, every transaction ever executed. It can thus provide insight about facts like how much value belonged a particular address at any point in the past. Blockchain.info provides access to the entire Bitcoin blockchain.

What is a 'Blockchain'

A blockchain is a digitized, decentralized, public ledger of all cryptocurrency transactions. Constantly growing as ‘completed’ blocks (the most recent transactions) are recorded and added to it in chronological order, it allows market participants to keep track of digital currency transactions without central recordkeeping. Each node (a computer connected to the network) gets a copy of the blockchain, which is downloaded automatically.

Originally developed as the accounting method for the virtual currency Bitcoin, blockchains – which use what's known as distributed ledger technology (DLT) – are appearing in a variety of commercial applications today. Currently, the technology is primarily used to verify transactions, within digital currencies though it is possible to digitize, code and insert practically any document into the blockchain. Doing so creates an indelible record that cannot be changed; furthermore, the record’s authenticity can be verified by the entire community using the blockchain instead of a single centralized authority.

Gobal Beer Market...

Global beer market is expected to $688.4 billion by 2020.

Bitcoin and Blockchain: The Potential for Remittances and Supply Chain Management

Indian families living abroad may be able to benefit from Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and other blockchain innovations. Prof. Raul Dé at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore says the technology may make remittance payments faster, cheaper, and more transparent. However, some regulation and streamlining is needed to ensure the technology reaches its peak safety and efficiency.

Rahul Dé Hewlett-Packard Chair Professor, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

FEBRUARY 09, 2018

np.advancedmanagement.net/article/2018/02/bitcoin-and-blockchain-potential-remittances-and-supply-chain-management