Definite optimism as human capital

I’ve come to the view that creativity and innovative capacity aren’t a fixed stock, coiled and waiting to be released by policy. Now, I know that a country will not do well if it has poor infrastructure, interest rate management, tax and regulation levels, and a whole host of other issues. But getting them right isn’t sufficient to promote innovati... See more

The fewer the manufacturing workers and engineers, the more removed everyone is from the particulars of industrial processes, and the more remote that knowledge becomes in each successive generation. We become think tankers and app designers and restaurant hosts, while the details of the industrial world become further and loftier abstractions. How... See more

There are plenty of service jobs that are meant to cancel out the efforts of other service jobs. One firm spends a few million dollars to hire a dozen ad agencies to convince you to purchase its car insurance policies; another firm hires a different dozen agencies and puts out other ads. One firm or person decides to sue another, creating the need ... See more

The most important essay I read in the last month is by Lant Pritchett. He asks why the scarcest economic resources—entrepreneurial ability and technical talent—are going into automating an abundant resource: cheap labor. In the developed world, labor is expensive because of policy restrictions, and it is neither efficient nor equitable to use scar... See more

I wonder if economists overrate the easier-to-observe policy factors and under-theorize the idea that positive visions of the future drive long-term growth. To put it in a different way, I wish that they would consider definite optimism as human capital. In addition to education levels, human capital models should consider factors like optimism, im... See more

Fewer op-eds on how people should feel about upcoming legislation; instead, more creation of cultural products that get people excited about the technological future. These kinds of efforts to promote definite optimism, rather than a continuous focus on never-ending political battles, might result in greater economic growth in the long run.

I regret this abstraction of the material world. Most of our living standards are tied to the world of atoms. Even when we spend a lot of time online and on our phones, we go to work in cars and subways; keep ourselves warm and cool using machinery and electricity; surround ourselves with objects that let us cook or relax; and on and on. The online... See more

First, we can all try to engage more actively with the material world, not merely the digital or natural world. Go ahead and pick an industrial phenomenon and learn more about it. Learn more about the history of aviation, and what it took to break the sound barrier; gaze at the container ships as they sail into port, and keep in mind that they carr... See more