The Book Industry

Technological shocks are known to alter industries. One way is when the new technology changes the way people people can make money providing the product. Take for example TV and radio. When these industries began people struggled with an economic system centered around a product that you could not exclude people from (until they mastered the art of marketing). This is going on today in the journalism industry as well as the book industry. This is an excellent example of the industry trying to change to keep up with technology shocks. These issues are excellent ones for position papers as well.

The Future of the Textbook

When a technological shock is ushered into an industry economists examine what the ramifications are. This is an excellent example, and if your stuck on a final position paper this may give you some ideas. In addition if you are writing about the music industry or journalism there may be some correlations here. The old way of doing things has changed. How do we move on? (this is not an economists, but it is a great read for this type of class)

Books as an Infant Industry

For all of my Journalist majors out there (I have quite a few in my Tuesday Thursday class) this is a post for you. Basically the issue is: how so you go from the invention of the printing press to a thriving industry for books? This is an interesting read.

Structural Unemployment

Unemployment as a result of opening up international trade, or technological advances are called structural unemployment (as you all know). This is a healthy type of unemployment. This link are some interesting types over the years.

Rules of Academics are Changing

Technology is changing everything. As an undergraduate student this is evident in the position papers you write. Now you find reliable sources on the web which is much less time consuming then it was 15 years ago when you had to go to the library and pull up each article. This article from the Freakonomics blog explains how the world of high end Academics are changing as well. A good read for those interested in graduate school (especially those interested in a PhD).

Technology Today

Two very interesting videos via 'Division of Labour'. Two main points here, the obvious one is that technology increases at an increasing rate. Slightly more subtle is the fact that technology does not exhibit diminishing returns (double the amount of technology we more than double our output).