It’s difficult to express how important and worthwhile analysis this is. Chris Tolles points us to what I have to say is an absolute must read piece by Jim Manzi (who I haven’t a... Read more
Twenty-five years ago today, I filed the proposal for what was to become the World Wide Web. My boss dubbed it ‘vague but exciting’. Luckily, he thought enough of the idea to allow me to qui... Read more
As machines take on more jobs, many find themselves out of work or with raises indefinitely postponed. Is this the end of growth? No, says Erik Brynjolfsson — it’s simply the growing p... Read more
This is part one of a two-part series on the limits of human economic growth on planet Earth. Part one details some of the environmental and natural resource challenges we’re up against. Par... Read more
M.I.T. economist Erik Brynjolfsson explains how technology has affected economic growth and productivity, and how human workers can adapt Fifteen years ago Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in a... Read more
The decline of work carries social costs as well as an economic price tag IMAGINE, as 19th-century utopians often did, a society rich enough that fewer and fewer people need to work — a soci... Read more
Paul Krugman has recently taken a keen interest in the rise of robots and automation — an issue that I have been focusing on since the publication of my book on this subject back in 2009. In... Read more
Not only do richer people consume more, they also consume differently. We simply can’t solve the fundamental issues of the global economy without rethinking the entire underpinnings o... Read more
What do we know about the prospects for long-run prosperity? The great bulk of the economic commentary you read in the papers is focused on the short run: the effects of the “fiscal cliff” o... Read more
The United States faced down authoritarian governments on the left and right. Now it may be facing an even greater challenge from within. It is hard to know exactly when it became acceptable... Read more
The Inclusive Wealth Indicator India and Brazil have had explosive growth over the last decade. Or have they? A new measurement of the true wealth of nations finds that what countries give u... Read more
It’s a message no one wants to hear: To slow down global warming, we’ll either have to put the brakes on economic growth or transform the way the world’s economies work. Th... Read more
To save the world–or really to even just make our personal lives better–we will need to work less. Time, like work, has become commodified, a recent legacy of industrial c... Read more