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How relevant if the notion "labour productivity" in the era of automation?

I am following the election debates for the European Parliament and time and again there are ideas that labor productivity should be boosted and that is the only way to grow the economy. But how ...
TomR's user avatar
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What are driving factors behind the recent slew of layoffs in the US tech industry (to the extent we understand them)?

Is this phenomenon something that economists think they have an understanding of? As an outsider, I'm very confused. The tech industry seems to be making a lot of money right now. Why is all of this ...
Rando McRandom's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
115 views

Marginal and Average Cost in the Romer Model of Endogenous Growth

On page 124 of David Romer's Advanced Macroeconomics (5th Ed), he mentioned that for the Romer model, Because firms producing final output face constant costs for each input and the production ...
Tan2525's user avatar
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Why Is Having a Strong Manufacturing Base Important to a Country's Economy?

I was living in Pittsburgh in my teens and twenties during the collapse of the steel industry and remember how profoundly it impacted Pittsburgh. Some say that due to the large percentage of the ...
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How Marxian economists evaluate current and future technologies for making investment decisions?

Current Marxian economists are incredibly vague about the merits of technologies and about concrete investment decisions, at least, the Western Marxian economists are. E.g. there is book https://www....
TomR's user avatar
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Technology Parameter In Converted Minimisation Problem

Question: I want to understand what's going on with respect to the technology parameter $A$ when i convert this minimisation problem into a maximisation problem. The issue is only revealed when i use ...
CormJack's user avatar
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Convexity of production sets and input requirement sets

The following question is from Microeconomic Analysis by Hal R Varian. True or false? If V(y) is a convex set, then the associated production set Y must be convex. The solution available says; False. ...
Krishnendu's user avatar
39 votes
2 answers
7k views

Why does Taiwan dominate the semiconductors market?

The recent visit of US politician Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan generated a lot of news about the dependence the world has on Taiwan, given its dominance of the semiconductor market. But I couldn't find ...
sourcream's user avatar
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Design of technology-neutral policy in the presence of multiple market failures

I am studying a paper by Aisbett, Cheng & Beck which considers the pros and cons of technological neutrality in green industrial policy. At the start of section 5.6 it refers to the well-known ...
Adam Bailey's user avatar
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What are the effects of discount retailers on the suppliers' economics?

The ACTION retail store is very popular in Europe and usually provides good but cheap quality goods (as people say). The cheap prices are guaranteed that the bulk part of the store goods is made in ...
saldenisov's user avatar
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How would you measure automation or technological development?

Hello dear Economists, I am a Political Science Masters student and now I have this paper due 10 days. It is only a paper so I should not model something too complex and also I obviously lack the ...
Meriç Gür's user avatar
3 votes
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Neoclassical Growth Model with Technology Investment

I am reading Parente & Prescott 1994 JPE. This is just a typical neoclassical model with the extension of a global technology diffusion function and firm investment in technology. Firms have ...
Alalalalaki's user avatar
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Testing method for the performance of R&D support program

Suppose that Government aims to initiate R&D support program to firms The objective of the support program is to rise R&D expenditures and productivity. I have the following data variables: Q: ...
studentp's user avatar
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Can technological investments and advancements be used as monetary policy tool to fight high inflation (or its prospects)?

As of today (2021.12) inflation figures are high (the prospects are under discussions but risks of high inflation can be projected to the future as well) and monetary tightening is in the cards. That ...
TomR's user avatar
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Why are production functions linear in technology?

Economists often assume a production function of the form $ Y = A f(K, L) $, where $Y$ is output, $K$ is capital, $L$ is labour and $A$ is technology. This form of production function can describe ...
user141240's user avatar
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1 answer
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Characterizing goods by R&D costs

Is there a name for distinguishing manufactured goods requiring little/no R&D and ones requiring high/sustained R&D costs? Do these two types of manufactured goods have a name in economics? ...
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Basic question i guess

I'm not in economics, I'm actually studying sociology and I'm doing a subject about labor economics. I'm reading an article that talks about automation and says "The employment impact of ...
waka 's user avatar
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Is there contradiction between automation created resilience and the full employment (with high wages)?

From the one side - full employment with the high wages (but still under the level of creating inflation threat) is nice thing and politicians and central banks are highly motivated to achieve this. ...
TomR's user avatar
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3 answers
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Increasing returns, implications?

If a firm has increasing returns to scale (i.e., doubling inputs more than doubles output) would that firm logically end up being the sole firm in its sector in the long run? If not, what is the ...
user31043's user avatar
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Can demand side restrictions explain the productivity paradox (Solow paradox)?

Productivity paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox is the name for the slow productivity growth (i.e. slow GDP growth) of the developed economies despite the robotics, AI, ...
TomR's user avatar
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How much is currently invested in artificial general intelligence research and development?

Glossary: Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is the name given to an upcoming technology that would be able to solve all sorts of problems, like a human, and unlike more specialized existing ...
Winston's user avatar
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Would directing more money to science and research and development be an effective response to recessions?

Typical responses to recessions is to follow Keynesian economics and support demand. Would directing money towards science and research and development be a better long term solution to recessions ...
Scc33's user avatar
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1 answer
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What is technology in the Ricardo model?

I've been reading about the Ricardo and Heckscher-Ohlin models. I'm having trouble following what makes a worker in the former able to produce more or less of a given good. So e.g. suppose a US worker ...
Mohan's user avatar
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2 votes
2 answers
677 views

Why labor-augmenting technological progress increases employment and wages?

My textbook says that advances in technology typically raise the marginal product of labor and shift the labor demand curve to the right and calls it labor-augmenting technological advances. The book ...
boinka's user avatar
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1 answer
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Define structural unemployment

I am a bit confused regarding the actual definition of structural unemployment. Some places say that it is the permanent decline of a particular industry, leading to workers being unemployed as they ...
A.B.S's user avatar
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4 answers
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Why do companies launch products at much higher prices, only to reduce the price drastically after a few months?

I see this to be a prevalent trend - companies too often launch products at much higher prices than they know is gonna lead to good sales numbers, only to reduce the price drastically after a few ...
Kristada673's user avatar
-1 votes
1 answer
82 views

How do people check or trust that central bank is not cheating? [closed]

How people can be sure that somebody, cooperating with central bank (or working in it), is not creating money in digital or paper form for themself, so that nobody else notices it?
qdinar's user avatar
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4 votes
2 answers
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How do tech giants manage turnover costs?

Lately I was struck by different studies concluding median job tenure at Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple is 1 to 2 years, very low compared to the Bureau of labor statistics which is a ...
Diane M's user avatar
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2 answers
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Technological unemployment

I am doing a project on technological change in the job market, that is the substitution of routine occupations and increasing demand for high-skilled jobs. I have done some research on this and now I ...
Julia Raciniewska's user avatar
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1 answer
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Understanding what's in the frequently reported and discussed high demand in IT specialists in Germany - is the IT Fachkräftemangel real?

So far, I can observe the following contradictory evidences what I perceive from the media. Statement group #1. In the press, there are repeated reports from different sources about missing ...
J. Doe's user avatar
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3 answers
681 views

Cobb-Douglas production function, given $w$ get $r$ regardless of input levels. Why?

There is a market economy with technology given by: $$Y = K^\alpha L^{1-\alpha} \tag{1}$$ Firms behave competitively and input prices are: $$r = \alpha K^{\alpha-1}L^{1-\alpha} = \alpha(\frac{L}{K})...
Tecon's user avatar
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Factor-augmenting technologies (Acemoglu and Restrepo 2018c)

In that paper, they consider the following production function: $Y = F(A_KK,A_LL)$. Where: K denotes capital, L is labor, and $A_K$ and $A_L$ denote capital-augmenting and labor-augmenting ...
Tecon's user avatar
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1 vote
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How is labor demand measured?

For instance, in the introduction of this paper (first paragraph), talking about Figure 1, they say that labor demand is measured as the real wage bill normalized by population. Is it common to ...
Tecon's user avatar
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1 vote
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272 views

Can one single payment contain multiple Merchant Category Codes (MCC)? [closed]

Some payment cards can be limited for certain purposes only (e.g. for paying only for food, or only for car fuel). When you try to pay for a different purpose, the system rejects the payment. I ...
Honza Zidek's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
29 views

Understanding Boserup's theories on food and overpopulation

From what I understand about Boserup's theories, she claims that when populations grow and near the carrying capacity of whatever habitat they live in, businesses will have incentive to invest in new ...
Yang's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
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Research community around logistics micro-economic topics?

Is there the equivalent of a Rand Journal of Economics for the topic of logistics, focusing on the micro-economics of productivity gains via automation or disruptive technologies. There is the ...
tony z's user avatar
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2 votes
3 answers
763 views

Claiming that food delivery apps are purely rent extraction

I engaged in an argument with a friend about whether takeaway food ordering apps had any 'value'. I tried to persuade him that they were rent extraction enterprises but he wasn't convinced. So I want ...
geoff22873's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
53 views

Reference Request: Primer on Relationship Economic Growth and Science / Technology

I'm in the early stages of planning a research agenda in this area, which means studying the current literature with an eye for further research opportunities. The Economics of Science and ...
quantif's user avatar
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1 vote
2 answers
137 views

Productivity and wages in a task-based model

In a task-based model like the one developed in Acemoglu&Autor 2011 with two types of worker, can the low type have a higher wage with respect to the high type? More specifically: if the ...
Tecon's user avatar
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1 vote
2 answers
178 views

How technology will help economists to do better predictions?

Would technologies as AI, BI and Big Data help the economists to make better predictions and test models to solve problems like "What level of fiscal stimulus is better for a especific country?" Is ...
Guilherme de Jesus Santos's user avatar
1 vote
3 answers
224 views

Why Is the West providing technology to India? [closed]

Previously, we have seen that Europeans and Americans provided various technologies (high-speed rail[1], aerospace[2][3], microprocessor[4], etc.) to China to earn instantaneous money. Later what ...
user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
91 views

What does it mean for a technology to have a $|\rho|<1$?

Nowadays, when trying to model (log)technology $a_t$, I've seen many times the following: $a_t = \rho a_{t-1}+\epsilon$, where epsilon is given a certain probability distribution. What does it mean ...
An old man in the sea.'s user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
2k views

Proxies for technological change in an economy?

I am writing a paper on the application of Value-Added TFP to measurement of technological change. Just thinking of throwing in a few variables into my regression. I have ICT capital share (as seen in ...
Badalyan's user avatar
5 votes
4 answers
9k views

Labour Saving vs. Labour Augmenting - what is the difference?

It seems reasonable to say that technology generally increases output per unit of labour. Therefore in any factory which has installed new technology one can reasonably expect that for the same ...
beastofburden's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
34 views

Energy saving technology and energy service price

I want to assess the effects of energy saving technologies on output growth using time series data. My work would benefit from time series data on patents for energy saving innovations, but this is ...
london's user avatar
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Which way is the pendulum swinging with regards to "Access to Capital"

The premise is said best by the economist George Magnus in 2015: "Advances in technological productivity gains are benefiting a limited number of people. The principal rewards of modern technology ...
Arash Howaida's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
304 views

Help with this microeconomics exercise

The question: A price-taking farmer produces a crop with labor L as the only input. His production function is:$$F(L) = 10L^{1/2} − 2L$$ He has 4 units of labor in his family and he cannot hire ...
FedRoger's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
289 views

How exactly can blockchain technology be used to make a supply chain more efficient?

I am a software developer, and have been studying Bitcoin, Ethereum and blockchain technology over the last 8 months or so. I have read a lot on the Internet about how blockchain technology will ...
Ajoy Bhatia's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
53 views

Disruptions in Server / Data Center Market

With the advent of cloud computing, data storage and scaling has become extremely cheap when compared to the strictly physical server alternative (which require a dedicated facility and substantial ...
Arash Howaida's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
526 views

Difference between Value-Added TFP and Gross-Output TFP?

I am working with EU-KLEMS data, and I am using TFP growth as a proxy for technological change. However, there are 2 variables for TFP - TFP based on Gross Output and TFP based on Value Added. I ...
Badalyan's user avatar