8 ms·

I strongly recommend Acemoglu, Robinson classic book "Why Nations Fail" https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity/dp/0307719227 https://www.am

I strongly recommend Acemoglu, Robinson classic book "Why Nations Fail" https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity/dp/0307719227 https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity/d... It's very accessible, no economics background required. Along with Krugman and Kahneman, one of the few economics scholars that take the time to write a book for layman.

Eumenes 2y ago
> Krugman Not sure I'd spend time on a Krugman book. He predicted in 1998 that the internet would cease having an economic impact by 2005 and that it would be no greater than fax machines. He's like the Neil deGrasse Tyson of economics.
- CyberRymden 2y ago
  Krugman is controversial at times, but he is a serious economist. The quote is also taken out of two important contexts. 1. It was not a serious academic prediction but rather part of a fluff piece by the Times about future precitions. 2. The quote also exists in the context of a debate that was raging during the advent of the internet whether or not the internet would hyper charge productivity and economic growth. In hindsight, especially after the late 1990s, the truth is far closer to the fax machine rather than a new era of prosperity. The lack of visible productivity growth from a technology that has so visibly transformed our society is one of the bigger questions in economics today.
  - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
    The lack of visible productivity growth. In particular, it's not as visible as you expect in the GDP statistics. Take TV Guide, for instance. Now, if anybody watches broadcast television, they can use the internet to find out what's on when. Is that better or worse for users than having a paper TV guide? In many ways it's better. But it shows up in the GDP as a negative, because nobody's buying TV Guide any more. Or take Google. I can search for any information I want, for free. That creates immense value - immense in every sense except the GDP, where it doesn't show up at all, because it's free. Wikipedia. Linux. gcc. The Wayback Machine. Even HN. All this is available to us, whenever we want it, for whatever purpose we want, for free. There's great value to us. Just nothing that shows up on the GDP statistics, because it's all free. (Yeah, I know, RedHat sells Linux, and Wikipedia asks for donations. They aren't Microsoft selling Windows and The World Book, though. You can still use them for free, and not get sued or jailed.)
    - kiba 2y ago
      Sure, there's a lot of value. There's also a lot of slops and negative value. These days I don't even use wikipedia that much even though I googled things constantly. GDP is a very gross measure of things to be sure, but also difficult to fake.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - blackhawkC17 2y ago
      These free things (Wikipedia, Linux, etc.) are sustained by a high GDP that translates to high incomes and, in turn, people willing to donate time and money for them to remain free. Let's try living in a country with a measly GDP per capita of $1,000 (Rwanda for example) and see how many free things we can get..
      - psd1 2y ago
        Alternative conjecture. People give more consistently in more pro-social societies. But those societies are poorer, with lower percentage of computer ownership and programming skills. So they give things like care and food. Trying to spin the west as the place where altruism is most prevalent seems incorrect. More data needed.
        blackhawkC17 2y ago
        I think we're in agreement here. I never said the West inherently has more altruism. However, the West's high GDP is what enables Westerners to give more to free computing/internet-related projects offering excellent value. Without a high GDP, there won't be much to give in the first place.
        psd1 2y ago
        Yes, I suspect I've made a distinction without a difference. You're right.
  - AlbertCory 2y ago
    > Krugman is controversial at times Kind of like saying Lysenko was controversial at times. He's not "controversial," he's just a bloviator. His credentials as a serious economist expired long ago when he signed up with the leftist team and agreed to never challenge them again, on anything. When you have to spend many words on explaining the "context" in which someone's quotes should be viewed, you are losing.
    - ninjagoo 2y ago
      > His credentials as a serious economist expired long ago when he signed up with the leftist team You might be (unpleasantly) surprised by the emphasis of the current year's nobel economics prize winners on the importance of societal institutions and the need for inclusivity to advance the wealth of nations :-)
      - AlbertCory 2y ago
        I'd be more surprised if you linked to any of Krugman's recent columns and I actually thought they were worthwhile.
    - Eumenes 2y ago
      Indeed. He is more politico and less economist these days: https://www.nytimes.com/column/paul-krugman https://www.nytimes.com/column/paul-krugman
    - cyberax 2y ago
      > Kind of like saying Lysenko was controversial at times. This is BS. Krugman has very specific theories that made predictions validated by practice. Remember 2008? He made a prediction that an increase in the monetary base wouldn't cause inflation. This prediction was spectacularly confirmed. He also made a case for fiscal intervention: it wouldn't cause inflation, and it would speed up the recovery. And his prediction again was confirmed. More recently: he predicted that the inflation spike was transient, due to supply chain issues rather than fundamental changes. And he's again been vindicated.
      - 2y ago
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ninjagoo 2y ago
  > He predicted in 1998 that the internet would cease having an economic impact by 2005 and that it would be no greater than fax machines The future is hard to predict. Using that as a reason to discount a Nobel-prize economist's economics-related work sounds like a gap in logic.
  - nradov 2y ago
    If economists can't predict the future then what good are they?
    - cjalmeida 2y ago
      If developers can’t produce code without bugs, what good are they? /s
fekunde 2y ago
After reading "Why Nations Fail", which I really enjoyed, I wondered whether we could develop an LLM with a wide enough context window where I could input the lessons from such books along with data and metrics about a specific country. Then, the AI could prescribe tangible solutions and policy recommendations tailored to that nation's unique situation. I'm curious what an AI system like that might look like. I also wonder if it's possible to experiment with a smaller-scale version of this concept using today's technology.
- JetSpiegel 2y ago
  I thought the Chicago School had already proved blindly applying "policy recommendations" from on high was a receipt for disaster and misery, but sure, let's do the same with AI, this time it will surely work.
- nradov 2y ago
  What's the point? We generally know what economic policies work. But they aren't put into effect due to ideology or special interests. This isn't a problem with a technical solution.
omnee 2y ago
The rule of law is a key part of a nations success as argued by AJR. A very good exposition for the layman on the rule of law provided by Tom Bingham in the eponymous 'The Rule of Law):https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7734691-the-rule-of-law https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7734691-the-rule-of-law While the above is informed by the UK's constitutional arrangement, the 8 principles are near universal when considering nations that have or aim for The Rule of Law. The principles are: (1) The law must be accessible and so far as possible intelligible, clear and predictable. (2) Questions of legal right and liability should ordinarily be resolved by application of the law and not the exercise of discretion. (3) The laws of the land should apply equally to all, save to the extent that objective differences justify differentiation. (4) Ministers and public officers at all levels must exercise the powers conferred on them in good faith, fairly, for the purpose for which the powers were conferred, without exceeding the limits of such powers and not unreasonably. (5) The law must afford adequate protection of fundamental human rights. (6) Means must be provided for resolving, without prohibitive cost or inordinate delay, bona fide civil disputes which the parties themselves are unable to resolve. (7) The adjudicative procedures provided by the state should be fair. (8) The rule of law requires compliance by the state with its obligations in international law as in national law.
alephnerd 2y ago
I also recommend Acemolgu's recent book "Power and Progress" on the relationship between labor and technology [0]. If you don't like reading, Acemoglu gave a talk about it at HKS recently [1] [0] - https://ig.ft.com/sites/business-book-award/books/2023/longlist/power-and-progress-by-daron-acemoglu-and-simon-johnson/ https://ig.ft.com/sites/business-book-award/books/2023/longl... [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT0NzlATjf0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT0NzlATjf0
js8 2y ago
I read the summary from the review and I am not convinced that neoliberal US and EU have a less extractive governance structure than China has, as the authors seem to claim. It's been a decade since the book was published and China is still going strong. We will see.
- CyberRymden 2y ago
  Do you actually think China has fairer courts, more open financial markets, and better business environment than the EU or US? For the longest time Hong Kong had to fill those gaps for China in order for the country to attract capital. Regardless, even if China does today the explanation still holds considering China only transformed a few decades before the book was written.
  - JetSpiegel 2y ago
    I think China is a worse country to live that the US or EU, but a better business environment. China's State Capitalism is simply more efficient than the neoliberalism hellscape that came up from the Soviet Union's collapse. I see the rest of the world becoming more similar to China than the other way around, unfortunately. The US is already a pseudo-Soviet state economically, and is on the brink of becoming a dictatorship on top of that.
    - blackhawkC17 2y ago
      > I see the rest of the world becoming more similar to China than the other way around, unfortunately. I hope they enjoy the mediocrity that comes with state-dominated economies. > The US is already a pseudo-Soviet state economically. Maybe I'm blind, but I have no idea how someone looks at the USA and concludes this.
      - JetSpiegel 2y ago
        Extremely inequality that keeps increasing, political movements that try to change this are killed in the crib, a dying empire. Just because the Central Comittee is called Blackrock, doesn't mean the American economy is not being more and more centrally planned. Free Enterprise is dying. I mean economically, the political system is still "free" (less and less), it's not a dictatorship (yet).

Eumenes 2y ago

> Krugman Not sure I'd spend time on a Krugman book. He predicted in 1998 that the internet would cease having an economic impact by 2005 and that it would be no greater than fax machines. He's like the Neil deGrasse Tyson of economics.

CyberRymden 2y ago
Krugman is controversial at times, but he is a serious economist. The quote is also taken out of two important contexts. 1. It was not a serious academic prediction but rather part of a fluff piece by the Times about future precitions. 2. The quote also exists in the context of a debate that was raging during the advent of the internet whether or not the internet would hyper charge productivity and economic growth. In hindsight, especially after the late 1990s, the truth is far closer to the fax machine rather than a new era of prosperity. The lack of visible productivity growth from a technology that has so visibly transformed our society is one of the bigger questions in economics today.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  The lack of visible productivity growth. In particular, it's not as visible as you expect in the GDP statistics. Take TV Guide, for instance. Now, if anybody watches broadcast television, they can use the internet to find out what's on when. Is that better or worse for users than having a paper TV guide? In many ways it's better. But it shows up in the GDP as a negative, because nobody's buying TV Guide any more. Or take Google. I can search for any information I want, for free. That creates immense value - immense in every sense except the GDP, where it doesn't show up at all, because it's free. Wikipedia. Linux. gcc. The Wayback Machine. Even HN. All this is available to us, whenever we want it, for whatever purpose we want, for free. There's great value to us. Just nothing that shows up on the GDP statistics, because it's all free. (Yeah, I know, RedHat sells Linux, and Wikipedia asks for donations. They aren't Microsoft selling Windows and The World Book, though. You can still use them for free, and not get sued or jailed.)
  - kiba 2y ago
    Sure, there's a lot of value. There's also a lot of slops and negative value. These days I don't even use wikipedia that much even though I googled things constantly. GDP is a very gross measure of things to be sure, but also difficult to fake.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - blackhawkC17 2y ago
    These free things (Wikipedia, Linux, etc.) are sustained by a high GDP that translates to high incomes and, in turn, people willing to donate time and money for them to remain free. Let's try living in a country with a measly GDP per capita of $1,000 (Rwanda for example) and see how many free things we can get..
    - psd1 2y ago
      Alternative conjecture. People give more consistently in more pro-social societies. But those societies are poorer, with lower percentage of computer ownership and programming skills. So they give things like care and food. Trying to spin the west as the place where altruism is most prevalent seems incorrect. More data needed.
      - blackhawkC17 2y ago
        I think we're in agreement here. I never said the West inherently has more altruism. However, the West's high GDP is what enables Westerners to give more to free computing/internet-related projects offering excellent value. Without a high GDP, there won't be much to give in the first place.
        psd1 2y ago
        Yes, I suspect I've made a distinction without a difference. You're right.
- AlbertCory 2y ago
  > Krugman is controversial at times Kind of like saying Lysenko was controversial at times. He's not "controversial," he's just a bloviator. His credentials as a serious economist expired long ago when he signed up with the leftist team and agreed to never challenge them again, on anything. When you have to spend many words on explaining the "context" in which someone's quotes should be viewed, you are losing.
  - ninjagoo 2y ago
    > His credentials as a serious economist expired long ago when he signed up with the leftist team You might be (unpleasantly) surprised by the emphasis of the current year's nobel economics prize winners on the importance of societal institutions and the need for inclusivity to advance the wealth of nations :-)
    - AlbertCory 2y ago
      I'd be more surprised if you linked to any of Krugman's recent columns and I actually thought they were worthwhile.
  - Eumenes 2y ago
    Indeed. He is more politico and less economist these days: https://www.nytimes.com/column/paul-krugman https://www.nytimes.com/column/paul-krugman
  - cyberax 2y ago
    > Kind of like saying Lysenko was controversial at times. This is BS. Krugman has very specific theories that made predictions validated by practice. Remember 2008? He made a prediction that an increase in the monetary base wouldn't cause inflation. This prediction was spectacularly confirmed. He also made a case for fiscal intervention: it wouldn't cause inflation, and it would speed up the recovery. And his prediction again was confirmed. More recently: he predicted that the inflation spike was transient, due to supply chain issues rather than fundamental changes. And he's again been vindicated.
    - 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ninjagoo 2y ago
> He predicted in 1998 that the internet would cease having an economic impact by 2005 and that it would be no greater than fax machines The future is hard to predict. Using that as a reason to discount a Nobel-prize economist's economics-related work sounds like a gap in logic.
- nradov 2y ago
  If economists can't predict the future then what good are they?
  - cjalmeida 2y ago
    If developers can’t produce code without bugs, what good are they? /s

fekunde 2y ago

After reading "Why Nations Fail", which I really enjoyed, I wondered whether we could develop an LLM with a wide enough context window where I could input the lessons from such books along with data and metrics about a specific country. Then, the AI could prescribe tangible solutions and policy recommendations tailored to that nation's unique situation. I'm curious what an AI system like that might look like. I also wonder if it's possible to experiment with a smaller-scale version of this concept using today's technology.

JetSpiegel 2y ago
I thought the Chicago School had already proved blindly applying "policy recommendations" from on high was a receipt for disaster and misery, but sure, let's do the same with AI, this time it will surely work.
nradov 2y ago
What's the point? We generally know what economic policies work. But they aren't put into effect due to ideology or special interests. This isn't a problem with a technical solution.

omnee 2y ago

The rule of law is a key part of a nations success as argued by AJR. A very good exposition for the layman on the rule of law provided by Tom Bingham in the eponymous 'The Rule of Law):https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7734691-the-rule-of-law https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7734691-the-rule-of-law While the above is informed by the UK's constitutional arrangement, the 8 principles are near universal when considering nations that have or aim for The Rule of Law. The principles are: (1) The law must be accessible and so far as possible intelligible, clear and predictable. (2) Questions of legal right and liability should ordinarily be resolved by application of the law and not the exercise of discretion. (3) The laws of the land should apply equally to all, save to the extent that objective differences justify differentiation. (4) Ministers and public officers at all levels must exercise the powers conferred on them in good faith, fairly, for the purpose for which the powers were conferred, without exceeding the limits of such powers and not unreasonably. (5) The law must afford adequate protection of fundamental human rights. (6) Means must be provided for resolving, without prohibitive cost or inordinate delay, bona fide civil disputes which the parties themselves are unable to resolve. (7) The adjudicative procedures provided by the state should be fair. (8) The rule of law requires compliance by the state with its obligations in international law as in national law.

alephnerd 2y ago

I also recommend Acemolgu's recent book "Power and Progress" on the relationship between labor and technology [0]. If you don't like reading, Acemoglu gave a talk about it at HKS recently [1] [0] - https://ig.ft.com/sites/business-book-award/books/2023/longlist/power-and-progress-by-daron-acemoglu-and-simon-johnson/ https://ig.ft.com/sites/business-book-award/books/2023/longl... [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT0NzlATjf0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT0NzlATjf0

js8 2y ago

I read the summary from the review and I am not convinced that neoliberal US and EU have a less extractive governance structure than China has, as the authors seem to claim. It's been a decade since the book was published and China is still going strong. We will see.

CyberRymden 2y ago
Do you actually think China has fairer courts, more open financial markets, and better business environment than the EU or US? For the longest time Hong Kong had to fill those gaps for China in order for the country to attract capital. Regardless, even if China does today the explanation still holds considering China only transformed a few decades before the book was written.
- JetSpiegel 2y ago
  I think China is a worse country to live that the US or EU, but a better business environment. China's State Capitalism is simply more efficient than the neoliberalism hellscape that came up from the Soviet Union's collapse. I see the rest of the world becoming more similar to China than the other way around, unfortunately. The US is already a pseudo-Soviet state economically, and is on the brink of becoming a dictatorship on top of that.
  - blackhawkC17 2y ago
    > I see the rest of the world becoming more similar to China than the other way around, unfortunately. I hope they enjoy the mediocrity that comes with state-dominated economies. > The US is already a pseudo-Soviet state economically. Maybe I'm blind, but I have no idea how someone looks at the USA and concludes this.
    - JetSpiegel 2y ago
      Extremely inequality that keeps increasing, political movements that try to change this are killed in the crib, a dying empire. Just because the Central Comittee is called Blackrock, doesn't mean the American economy is not being more and more centrally planned. Free Enterprise is dying. I mean economically, the political system is still "free" (less and less), it's not a dictatorship (yet).