Category Archives: Economics

Posts exploring the economic impacts of science and engineering. The value of strong science and engineering practice has many benefits to the economy – directly and indirectly. Many countries are focusing their future economic plans on advancing their scientific, engineering and technology communities and creating environments that support scientists and engineers.

Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act

I agree with restricting the use of genetic information for things like insurance – US to outlaw corporate prejudice based on genes:

Soon it will be illegal to deny US citizens jobs or insurance simply because they have an inherited illness, or a genetic predisposition to a particular disease.

On 25 April, the House of Representatives voted 420 to 3 to pass the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). The Senate is expected to endorse the act within a few weeks, which is also supported by President Bush. “I am so stunned by the majority,” says Sharon Terry, president of the Genetic Alliance, a charity lobbying for the rights of people with inherited illnesses.

Genetic information can provide valuable information about risks. It is not often that I am for saying people should be prohibited from using information that would aid them in making better decisions. However it can be the best public policy to require insurance companies to be prohibited from using information that would allow them to better access risks and price insurance accordingly. So those that know they have such genetic risks will be paying less than they would if the insurance companies were allowed to use that information and everyone else will pay more (to cover for those with the increased risk). I think that is the best policy for the society. However it is not really about outlawing corporate prejudice it is about saying that we will have everyone is society share the cost of risks rather than those that can be identified as greater health risks.

Thinking this is about preventing bad corporate behavior seems to me an attempt to change the focus of the real issue. And that is not a good idea because this is a complex area that we are going to have to make a wide number of decisions about as a society. Pretending the issue is simple does society a disservice. This is an large economic issue and what choices various societies decided to make will be debated extensively for quite some time I believe..

Related: Improving the heath care system posts (from our management blog) – post about health care (from this blog)

Innovation with Math

Flight Plan:

Invented by scientists at the nearby Los Alamos National Laboratory in the 1980s, complexity science is a gumbo of insights drawn from fields as diverse as biology, physics, and economics. At its core is the belief that any seemingly complex and utterly random system or phenomenon–from natural selection to the stock market–emerges from the simple behavior of thousands or millions of individuals. Using computer algorithms to stand in for those individual “agents,” scientists discovered they could build fantastically powerful and detailed models of these systems if only they could nail down the right set of rules.

When Brown arrived in town in the late 1990s, many of the scientists-in-residence at the Santa Fe Institute–the serene think tank dedicated to the contemplation of complexity–were rushing to commercialize their favorite research topics. The Prediction Co. was profitably gaming Wall Street by spotting and exploiting small pockets of predictability in capital flows. An outfit called Complexica was working on a simulator that could basically model the entire insurance industry, acting as a giant virtual brain to foresee the implications of any disaster. And the BiosGroup was perfecting agent-based models that today would fall under the heading of “artificial life.”

Software Patents – Bad Idea

MIT League for Programming Freedom on Software Patents, including: Why Patents Are Bad for Software, No Patents on Ideas by Thomas Jefferson and letter from Donald E. Knuth to the U.S. Patent Office

In the period 1945-1980, it was generally believed that patent law did not pertain to software. However, it now appears that some people have received patents for algorithms of practical importance–e.g., Lempel-Ziv compression and RSA public key encryption–and are now legally preventing other programmers from using these algorithms.

This is a serious change from the previous policy under which the computer revolution became possible, and I fear this change will be harmful for society. It certainly would have had a profoundly negative effect on my own work: For example, I developed software called TeX that is now used to produce more than 90% of all books and journals in mathematics and physics and to produce hundreds of thousands of technical reports in all scientific disciplines. If software patents had been commonplace in 1980, I would not have been able to create such a system, nor would I probably have ever thought of doing it, nor can I imagine anyone else doing so.

$500 Million to Reduce Childhood Obesity in USA

$500-Million Commitment to Reverse Childhood Obesity in U.S.:

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) today announced it will commit at least $500 million over the next five years to tackle one of the most urgent public health threats facing our nation: childhood obesity. This is the largest commitment by any foundation to this issue. The Foundation’s goal is to reverse the epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States by 2015.

During the past four decades, obesity rates have soared among all age groups, more than quadrupling among children ages 6 to 11. Today, more than 33 percent of children and adolescents—approximately 25 million kids—are overweight or obese.
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In addition to the toll on our nation’s health, obesity also poses a tremendous financial threat to our economy and our health care system. It’s estimated that the obesity epidemic costs our nation $117 billion per year in direct health care costs and lost productivity. Childhood obesity alone carries a huge price tag-up to $14 billion per year in direct health care costs to treat kids.
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The Foundation will focus on improving access to affordable healthy foods and opportunities for safe physical activity in schools and communities.

Ranking Universities Worldwide

The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities provides another estimate of the top universities. The methodology is far ideal however I still find it interesting. The various attempts to rank schools can provide a general idea of impact of various institutions (though the measures are fairly crude). Still a sensible picture (especially at the country level) can emerge. And the various rankings should be a able to track shifts in the most influential institutions and relative country strength over time. How quickly those rankings track changes will vary depending on the measures used. I would imagine most will lag the “real” changes as it is easy to imagine many measures that would lag. Still, as I have said before, I expect the USA will lose in relative ranking compared to China, India, Japan, Singapore, Mexico…

The ranking methodology used here weighed rankings in: Jiao Tong academic rankings, Essential Science Indicators, Google Scholar, Alexa (a measure of web site visits to universities) and The Times Higher World University Rankings.

Country representation of the top universities (number of top schools in each country):

location	Webometrics Top 100	Jiao Tong Top 101	% of World Population	% of World GDP*
USA	53	54	4.6%	30.4%
Germany	10	5	1.3	6.3
Canada	8	4	0.5	2.5
United Kingdom	6	10	0.9	5.0
Australia	3	2	0.3	1.6
Japan	1	6	2.0	10.3
The rest of Europe	16	13
Brazil	1	0	2.8	1.8
Mexico	1	0	1.6	1.7
Israel	0	1	0.1	0.3

* IMF, World Economic Outlook Database, September 2006 (2005 data)
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Micro-Wind Turbines for Home Use

Hong Kong Inventors Unveil New Micro-Wind Turbines Suitable for City Dwellers

“Let’s say if you have good conditions, five, six meters [of wind] per second, if you are a family with one kid you need most probably three, four square meters of that then you can most probably cover at least 60, 70 percent of your [energy] needs.” The technology can also help power bigger buildings. Administrators at Hong Kong’s Sea School, a secondary school offering basic seaman training, will install the new micro wind-turbines on its roof in April.

Gambarota says his biggest dream is to see his invention being used in developing countries. He says energy generated by micro wind turbines can be used to pump water, for example, saving women and girls from having to walk for miles to rivers and lakes to fetch it.

Information from Motorwave. Very cool idea though still early (they are meant only to provide electricity for immediate use at this time – no way to sell excess power to the grid or battery backup yet).

Global Technology Leadership

US ‘no longer technology king’:

Countries were judged on technological advancements in general business, the infrastructure available and the extent to which government policy creates a framework necessary for economic development and increased competitiveness. The Networked Readiness Index, the sixth of its kind published by the World Economic Forum with Insead, the Paris-based business school, scrutinised progress in 122 economies worldwide.

Despite losing its top position, the US still maintained a strong focus on innovation, driven by one of the world’s best tertiary education systems and its high degree of co-operation with industry, the report said. The country’s efficient market environment, conducive to the availability of venture capital, and the sophistication of financial markets, was also given recognition.

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Swiss dig world’s Longest Tunnel

Swiss dig world’s longest tunnel:

As long ago as 1994, the Swiss voted in a nationwide referendum to put all freight crossing their country onto the railways. Naturally, such an ambitious plan was not going to happen overnight, but now the project dubbed the engineering feat of the 21st Century is slowly taking shape.

Deep beneath the Alps, the Swiss are building a high-speed rail link between Zurich and Milan. It will include, at 57 kilometres (35 miles), the world’s longest tunnel. A key feature of the project, which is new to alpine transport, is the fact that the entire railway line will stay at the same altitude of 500 metres (1,650ft) above sea level.
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In fact the price tag for the entire rail link has soared from about $8bn (Â£4bn) to almost $15bn and final completion is unlikely to be before 2018.

Boeing CEO’s Speech to Engineering Students

Boeing CEO offers UM students advice about careers, innovation:

He explained the reality, as it applies to the corporate world today, is that innovation is a team sport, not a solo sport. It (innovation) depends on a culture of technical sharing and openness to others not a reclusive environment, innovation can and should occur in all areas of the business, incremental doesn’t mean insignificant, eureka moments are rare, and in a business environment, creativity cannot exist without discipline.

“It takes people working together across different groups, disciplines, and organizational arms to make it happen,” Mr. McNerney said. “It also takes real leadership to charter the course and (inspire) people to reach for the highest level of performance supported by a never ending focus on integrity.”

According to McNerney business has become focused on measuring value practically, which causes engineering-based companies like Boeing to innovate more frequently than they invent all-new products.

China Leads in Producing Post Graduate Engineers

Highly recommended for those interested in the macro view of engineering education in the USA, India and China. Where the Engineers Are is an excellent article building off the work mentioned in previous posts including: Worldwide Science and Engineering Doctoral Degree Data, USA Under Counting Engineering Graduates and House Testimony on Engineering Education. The data they have collected and interpreted shows that China has moved ahead of the USA in doctoral degrees in engineering and India has not been growing there doctoral graduate counts.

In the United States, close to 60% of engineering PhD degrees awarded annually are currently earned by foreign nationals, according to data from the American Society for Engineering Education. Indian and Chinese students are the dominant foreign student groups. Data for 2005 that we obtained from the Chinese government show that 30% of all Chinese students studying abroad returned home after their education, and various sources report that this number is steadily increasing. Our interviews with business executives in India and China confirmed this trend.

The bottom line is that China is racing ahead of the United States and India in its production of engineering and technology PhD’s and in its ability to perform basic research. India is in particularly bad shape, as it does not appear to be producing the numbers of PhD’s needed even to staff its growing universities.