8 karma · joined January 16, 2022
The prospect of ecological collapse has drawn a lot of attention to the idea of negative externalities, but it's worth mentioning that positive externalities are also important in economic theory. For example, positive externalities to knowledge creation have been modeled as the engine of long-term growth by endogenous growth theorists since the 1980s (starting with Paul Romer and Robert Lucas), based on precursory work from the 1960s (e.g. Kenneth Arrow and Hirofumi Uzawa), and ideas reaching-at least-back to the work of Alfred Marshall in the late 19th c.
Still, let's hope that the global economic order doesn't depend on what economists are doing in their models :)
[0] For a nuanced historical perspective, see this paper by Steven Medema: https://sites.duke.edu/sgmedema/files/2022/12/Medema-ExceptU...
defaults write -g NSWindowShouldDragOnGesture -bool yesRegardless, I think the book remains useful for its intended audiences as a quantitative assessment of available energy sources given our growth path.
[0] "The rookie mistake here is assuming that adults are in charge." (p. 134)
For those interested in her economic ideas, I recommend reading _The Economy of Cities_ (1969) followed by _Cities and the Wealth of Nations_ (1984). For a quicker overview, here's a past submission/discussion on the topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10834435
[0] https://reason.com/2001/06/01/city-views-2/ (search the page for "remembered")