6 Posts found for Source: Evonomics

Traditional economics views the economy in a fairly mechanistic way. If people are rational and we want to change their behavior then we just need to change their incentives. Thus, a lot of policy is conducted through tinkering with the tax code or subsidies, for example if one wants more innovation, give an R&D tax credit; if one wants less smoking, tax it heavily. Of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Eric Beinhocker | Source: Evonomics | Subject: Economics

[Adam] Smith saw things differently. Trade is not zero-sum, he wrote. Rather, trade increases the size of the market, which allows for greater labour specialization. Specialized labour is more productive than non-specialized labour, so that a world of trade and specialization, in which many people focus on one task and exchange their produce with others in mutually beneficial trades, is one in which everyone is … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Ryan Avent | Source: Evonomics | Subjects: Economics, Trade

People, essentially, do not create their own fortunes. They inherit them, come to them through the occupation of some state-protected niche, or, if they are very brilliant and very lucky, through infusing a particular group of men and women with the germ of an idea, which, in time and with just the right environment, allows that group to evolve into an organism suited to the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Ryan Avent | Source: Evonomics | Subjects: Economics, Entrepreneurship

The wealth of humans is societal. But the distribution of that wealth doesn’t rest on markets or on social perceptions of who deserves what but on the ability of the powerful to use their power to retain whatever of the value society generates that they can.

That is not a radical statement. People take what they can take, and it is only the interplay of countervailing … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Ryan Avent | Source: Evonomics | Subject: Economics

The wealth of humanity is limited by our ability to produce goods and services of value. The production of goods and services of value increasingly rests on the collection, processing and management of information. There is no value without the knowledge of what can be produced, what ought to be produced, and how it can be produced most effectively. It is the information-processing structures of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Ryan Avent | Source: Evonomics | Subjects: Economics, Information

Economic thinking is changing. If that thesis is correct – and there are many reasons to believe it is – then historical experience suggests policy and politics will change as well. How significant that change will be remains to be seen. It is still early days and the impact thus far has been limited. Few politicians or policymakers are even dimly aware of the changes … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Eric Beinhocker | Source: Evonomics | Subject: Economics