The Digital Economy
Productivity and participation
- Economic productivity increased as improvements in digital communications enabled increased American participation in worldwide economic opportunities.
- Two effects from one cause: productivity at home and participation in a worldwide market.
- 6.6's businesses looking outside U.S. borders is the earlier stage; digital communication removes the distance cost.
Select all three effects of the new technologies.
The third is a change in how people relate.
Three technologies, three effects
- Technological innovations in computing, digital mobile technology, and the internet transformed daily life, increased access to information, and led to new social behaviours and networks.
- Three technologies and three effects, and the third — new social behaviours and networks — is a change in how people relate, not only in what they can do.
- 7.7's radio and cinema spread a national culture; this goes further, changing the direction of communication as well as its reach.
Select all three labour-market facts in the CED's short sentence.
The CED does not assert a cause among them.
Employment moved, and unions shrank
- Employment increased in service sectors and decreased in manufacturing, and union membership declined.
- Three facts in one short sentence, and the CED places the union decline beside the sectoral shift without asserting a cause.
- 6.7's unions had organised in manufacturing; a workforce that moves out of manufacturing changes what a union can organise.
A technology, a labour-market change, or a distributional fact?
Sort each element of the digital economy.
Compared with 6.7, the difference in 9.4 is that real wages...
The double fact has become a single one.
The Gilded Age's double fact has become a single one. 6.7 recorded real wages increased... while the gap between rich and poor grew; 9.4 records that real wages stagnated for the working and middle class amid growing economic inequality — the comparison is the strongest point available here.
Digital communications enabled increased American participation in...
6.6's businesses looking outside U.S. borders is the earlier stage.
And wages stagnated
- Real wages stagnated for the working and middle class amid growing economic inequality.
- 6.7 had recorded rising real wages while the gap between rich and poor grew; here the wages stop rising and the gap keeps growing.
- So the double fact of the Gilded Age has become a single one, and stating the comparison is the strongest analytical move available.
A workforce that moves out of manufacturing changes what a ____ can organise.
6.7's unions had organised in manufacturing.
Causes and effects over time
- The objective is the causes and effects of economic and technological change over time.
- Causes: digital communications, computing, mobile technology and the internet.
- Effects: higher productivity, worldwide participation, transformed daily life, a service economy, declining unions, and stagnant real wages.
Two periods can both show rising inequality and mean different things: in one, everyone gains and some gain far more; in the other, most gain nothing while some still gain. The measure looks similar and the experience does not.
Economic productivity increased as improvements in digital communications enabled increased American participation in worldwide economic opportunities. Technological innovations in computing, digital mobile technology, and the internet transformed daily life, increased access to information, and led to new social behaviours and networks. Employment increased in service sectors and decreased in manufacturing, and union membership declined. Real wages stagnated for the working and middle class amid growing economic inequality.