This article from The Atlantic agrees with the statement made here. Rather than acting as a leader in the global response to the pandemic, the US has failed to respond to the pandemic despite having the capability to predict and prevent some of the impacts of COVID-19.

I find this really interesting, that we can use the prisoner's dilemma to model conflicts with environmental problems for businesses. This makes me wonder what other applications can this model be used for.

I find this very interesting because the prisoners' dilemma model can be applicable in environmental problems with businesses as well. I wonder what other applications the Nash equilibrium can be used in.

There are many examples of this, like having to pay for a plastic bag at the grocery store, the government taxing companies for air pollution, etc. There are also instances without monetary taxing, such as putting horrible images of the health consequences of smoking, incentivizing people to not buy smoke cartons.

Most economists and policymakers have focused on “getting it right,” while what is really needed is an explanation for why poor nations “get it wrong.”

Poor countries are poor because those who have power make choices that create poverty. They get it wrong not by mistake or ignorance but on purpose.

Traditionally economics has ignored politics, but understanding politics is crucial for explaining world inequality. * It is precisely because economics has assumed that political problems are solved that it has not been able to come up with a convincing explanation for world inequality.

The Ignorance Hypothesis: world inequality exists because we or our rulers do not know how to make poor countries rich. * can't blame it on ignorance; if ignorance were the problem, well-meaning leaders would quickly learn what types of policies increased their citizens’ incomes and welfare, and would gravitate toward those policies.

The ignorance hypothesis differs from the geography and culture hypotheses in that it comes readily with a suggestion about how to “solve” the problem of poverty * we should be able to “engineer” prosperity around the world by providing the right advice and by convincing politicians of what is good economics, yet the main obstacle to economic growth is the incentives and constraints leaders face from the political and economic institutions in their societies.

The Culture Hypothesis: prosperity ∝ culture * religion, beliefs, values, ethics * social norms matter & are hard to change; sometimes supports institutional differences * BUT aspects of culture often emphasized—religion, national ethics, African or Latin values—are just not important for understanding how we got here and why the inequalities in the world persist.

Other aspects: the extent to which people trust each other or are able to cooperate * important but mostly an outcome of institutions, not an independent cause

North and South Korea: * while “culture” is very different between the South and the North today, it played no role in causing their diverging economic fortunes. * any difference in culture between the two parts of Korea is not a cause of the differences in prosperity but a consequence.

Africa: * promising economic experiments were obliterated not by African culture or the inability of ordinary Africans to act in their own self-interest, but first by European colonialism and then by postindependence African governments. * the real reason that the Kongolese did not adopt superior technology was because they lacked any incentives to do so * Many of them were captured and sold as slaves—hardly the environment to encourage investment to increase long-term productivity. * * Neither did the king have incentives to adopt the plow on a large scale or to make increasing agricultural productivity his main priority; exporting slaves was so much more profitable.

Middle East: * Yes, countries such as Syria and Egypt are poor, and their populations are primarily Muslim. But these countries also systemically differ in other ways that are far more important for prosperity. * * Ottoman Empire

"National Cultures" * not true either; the variation in prosperity within former English colonies is as great as that in the entire world

China: * current Chinese growth has nothing to do with Chinese values or changes in Chinese culture; it results from the economic changes initiated by Deng Xiaoping and his allies after Mao Zedong's death, moving away from socialist policies

The Geography Hypothesis: the great divide between rich and poor countries is created by geographical differences. * poor --> tropic, rich --> temperate latitudes

Montesquieu's explanation: people in tropical climates tend to be lazy + lazy people tended to be ruled by despots

Jeffrey Sachs * tropical diseases have very adverse consequences for health and therefore labor productivity * tropical soils do not allow for productive agriculture

History illustrates that there is no simple or enduring connection between climate or geography and economic success. • disease = CONSEQUENCE of poverty

Tropical agriculture is intrinsically unproductive * agricultural output has nothing to do with soil quality

Jared Diamond– continental inequality * origins of geographic inequality rested in historical endowments of plant and animal species, which influenced agricultural productivity - transition from hunter-gatherer to farming lifestyle * farming --> specialization of labor, trade, urbanization, and political development * CANNOT explain modern world inequality; inequality in the modern world largely results from the uneven dissemination and adoption of technologies