The International diffusion of the Internet
17 May 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, entrepreneurship, growth disasters, growth miracles, industrial organisation, survivor principle Tags: China, creative destruction, international technology diffusion, technology diffusion
The robots are coming, the robots are coming to property values
16 May 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, survivor principle, technological progress, transport economics, urban economics Tags: agglomeration, compensating differentials, creative destruction, driverless cars, drones, entrepreneurial alertness, land prices, land supply
A few years ago, Casey Mulligan wrote a fascinating little op-ed about the impact of drones on land prices and urban living.
As drones and driverless cars make it cheaper to move people around cities, the value of inner-city land will fall simply because their proximity to the action has diminished.
With drones and driverless cars, it will be easier to bring something in on the just-in-time basis rather than have it on hand as inventory or within walking distance because traffic congestion makes it too slow to call it up from the suburbs through the conventional commercial transport.
But we live in a world of trade-offs. More people may want to move into the city because it’s so much easier to move around and call things up by drone, driverless car and the share economy, so this may intensify agglomeration effects and increased land prices. Another big day out for the two handed economist.
Creative destruction in recorded music sales
16 May 2015 1 Comment
in entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, Music, survivor principle Tags: creative destruction, entrepreneurial alertness
CHART: Recorded Music Sales Have Collapsed and Were At a 40+ Year Low in 2013 http://t.co/p0zIdbutSx—
Mark J. Perry (@Mark_J_Perry) May 07, 2015
Creative destruction and the Internet
15 May 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship Tags: creative destruction, entrepreneurial alertness, Internet, technology diffusion
Digital News readers are cheapies
14 May 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, survivor principle Tags: creative destruction, digital media, entrepreneurial alertness, legacy media, newspapers
I just fired Google Chrome
14 May 2015 Leave a comment
in administration Tags: creative destruction, Google Chrome
For several weeks now Google Chrome would on a regular basis not open tabs. Furthermore, this bug stopped my emails from downloading or uploading. It also stopped my other browsers from working as well.
This bug occurred several times a day and required me to clear the cache, restart the computer, and login again to Facebook and Twitter. This fix only worked for maybe 12 hours.
All the online solutions were workarounds that lasted a few hours or so. The Google product forum was just plain hopeless. This bug has been around since 2012 so there is no excuse for it not been fixed. You’re fired.
The trivial role of conservation in forestry conservation
13 May 2015 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, environmentalism, resource economics Tags: conservation, creative destruction, innovation, profit and loss
Creative destruction in magazines
13 May 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, survivor principle Tags: creative destruction, entrepreneurial alertness, Internet, legacy media, magazines, market selection
The Death of the One-Hit Wonder
13 May 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship, Music Tags: consumer sovereignty, creative destruction, entrepreneurial alertness, market selection, one-hit wonders, superstar wages, superstars, The meaning of competition
In a recent article, The Atlantic argues that while record labels used to be able to determine which songs would become radio hits, stations now rely more heavily on consumer preferences.
In short, iHeartMedia, the conglomerate that owns 850 radio stations, doesn’t care about the desire of the music industry for a quicker hit cycle so they can sell more units. They just don’t want you to change the channel — and the best way to keep you tuned in is to keep playing the same songs.
Another factor is that 1% of artists earn 77% of all revenues from recorded music. Modern music is dominated by superstars. Some of these are quite old superstars from many decades ago when they first had their first hit. The industry circling its wagons:
Just as the movie industry seems to be relying more heavily on sequels, the music industry is putting more emphasis on promoting established artists.
In a turbulent marketplace, record companies are liable to be more risk averse. Developing new artists who might hit it big is less appealing when the prize is projected to get smaller.
Creative destruction in occupations
12 May 2015 Leave a comment
in labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, personnel economics Tags: creative destruction, innovation, skill biased technological change
"The Changing Nature of Middle-Class Jobs" – via @nytimes nyti.ms/17Jzp1N http://t.co/2vRL6idiXt—
PewResearch FactTank (@FactTank) February 22, 2015
The robots are coming, the robots are coming – been there, done that in Japan
12 May 2015 1 Comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economic history, entrepreneurship, growth miracles, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, survivor principle, unemployment Tags: creative destruction, entrepreneurial alertness, innovation, Japan, technological unemployment
When I was a kid, I used to like reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica. I read them from cover to cover.
One of the things I recalled from the Encyclopaedia Britannica was that in 1961 nearly half of the Japanese workforce worked in the agricultural sector.
I notice that anomaly when I was reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica entry on Japan in the 1970s. Japan had undergoing an economic transformation since my Encyclopaedia Britannica’s were written in 1961. It was very much out of date.
Australian manufacturing was being outcompeted in every direction from automobiles to clothing and footwear by the Japanese manufacturing sector back when I was a teenager.
The Japanese economic miracle absorbed the Japanese agricultural labour force without anybody having time to shout "the robots are coming, the robots are coming".
There is a lesson in there somewhere for the current breathless journalism, with far too many academic fellow travellers about "the robots are coming, the robots are coming".
When I was a student at graduate school in Japan, I visited a Japanese factory in 1996 that was completely automated bar one function. Only once did a human hand actually touch the electrical goods they were making. Naturally, at the Q&A session at the end of our visit, I asked when was his job going to be automated.
Creative destruction in newsrooms
11 May 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship Tags: creative destruction, entrepreneurial alertness
U.S. Newsroom employment is down to a 30-year low, as the #newspaper crisis continues statista.com/topics/994/new… http://t.co/teMPPAkAEd—
Statista (@StatistaCharts) September 18, 2013
No signs of a newspaper crisis in Asia and Latin America (as of yet) statista.com/topics/994/new… http://t.co/701eDUPVOy—
Statista (@StatistaCharts) June 05, 2013
Creative destruction in browsers
10 May 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship Tags: creative destruction, entrepreneurial alertness, Firefox, Google
• Chart: 5 Years After Launch, #Chrome is on Top of the Browser World statista.com/topics/1001/go… http://t.co/JukAKTj7DB—
Statista (@StatistaCharts) September 06, 2013
• Chart: Google #Chrome is Winning the Browser Wars statista.com/markets/21/int… http://t.co/FOWFywpUn2—
Statista (@StatistaCharts) August 15, 2013
The U.S. #newspaper industry is in bad shape according to this alarming chart. #publishing statista.com/topics/994/new… http://t.co/zWLU3PNme6—
Statista (@StatistaCharts) April 16, 2013
Delivering a computer – 1957 and now
09 May 2015 Leave a comment
1957: 13 men delivering a computer.
2017: a person may wear 13 computing devices http://t.co/ORE45mw5x0—
Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) January 11, 2015
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Recent Comments