While looking at this graph, I had a variety of questions.

For instance, why are some countries so high on the graph while others are lower on the graph? You would expect the world's superpowers to be the richest, but instead many Scandinavian countries are the richest. Furthermore, what affects the different distributions we see? After clicking on the link to the side, I saw that some countries had a much higher standard deviation for their income distribution. Most importantly, I wonder how trade affects all these different statistics. For instance, India and China participate in a lot of trade, but are still not extremely rich. On the other hand, I would have no idea how trade could affect income distribution. I think these are all interesting questions worth looking into.

Recently, worker unions have become less effective due to the increasing automation of jobs. As more and more jobs are being left to robots or machines, individuals now have less and less reliable jobs to depend on. This was an especially large trend during the COVID pandemic, as jobs had to be automated more than ever to prevent the spread of the virus. These patterns demonstrated how disposable jobs could be at risk of being replaced as society develops further and technology becomes available to replace human labour, something that frightened many.

This article provides further insight into how the automation of jobs is hurting everyday workers.

"On the contrary, they represent a failure to deter Putin from invading Ukraine."

Fear is typically a good strategy to stop people, even nations, from acting immorally or in an almost unjust manner. Regrettably, sanctions by themselves weren't sufficient to instill terror in Putin. Putin may be an elderly, senile man who should have feared sanctions but didn't, but it doesn't mean that sanctions on their own are ineffectual. However, I believe that Putin is a cunning strategist and a devilish genius, so I doubt that these penalties will have much of a deterrent effect.

This idea is also supported by this article, which describes how sanctions have had an effect, but not enough to deter Russia: https://www.globsec.org/news/yes-it-hurts-measuring-the-effects-of-western-sanctions-against-russia/

this is gaurav

i wonder what economic policy will look like post-covid, and how exactly things will change. especially in the united states, there was already anti-globalization sentiment prior to the pandemic, when trump ran under the successful "america first" campaign slogan. now that countries have even more of an incentive to keep to themselves, and citizens are evermore in need of help, will we see world economies retreat drastically from the high levels of trade we saw pre-covid?

According to this report (link), while the economies of many countries have returned to pre-covid levels, citizens are still emphasizing domestic priorities over international issues. i wonder what effect this may have on the development of currently developing countries. will this change in economic policy be enough to affect how they develop, or will developing countries be largely unaffected by these changes?

this is gaurav

We learnt in class that even though comparative advantage incentivizes countries to specialize and produce goods for the sake of trade, many countries produce multiple goods as a result of the benefits of economies of scale. This goes to show that even though the global economy today is heavily interreliant, there are quite a few ways in which countries, both large and small, can also be self-sufficient.

I wonder whether or not we can strike an effective balance between interreliance and self-sufficiency, and whether or not this can be achieved simply through Krugman's theory on economies of scale.

this is gaurav

in at environmental science, we learnt that a tragedy of the commons exists with many different biological reserves, such as the ocean, the air, and biomes. in many cases, we act in ways that damage or deplete these biological reserves without thinking about long-term sustainability. this is because these goods are treated as public goods but are actually common goods. that is to say, they are treated as nonrivalrous and nonexcludable, but they are only nonexcludable, and they are rivalrous. this means that in many cases, our actions that affect these biological reserves are not sustainable, and overdeplete such resources. i looked online for further research on this idea, and there are multiple papers which agree with this assessment of biological reserves as common goods.

this is gaurav

i think the idea that we do not "run out" of such resources is extremely interesting. because the supply of fossil fuels and other mined minerals is extremely vast, as mentioned below, individuals tend to mine these minerals and treat them as if they are unlimited. i think this results in triggering a tragedy of the commons effect, where we overconsume these fossil fuels past what is economically and environmentally sustainable. this can be quite damaging for both the environment and for our energy economy in the long-run.

this is gaurav

on page 62, the report describes how "shared mental models" are important to found institutions, create collective action, and cultivate solidarity. i think this idea links in very well with the idea about social thinking. in many cases, our mental models, or our understanding of the world, is shaped by those around us, largely due to social thinking. however, this is most likely a result of the evolutionary benefit of institutions and solidarity. for that reason, i feel like there is a strong link between these two mental models.

this is gaurav

on page 5, the report talks about the distinction between the automatic system of thinking and the deliberative system of thinking. this reminds me of the book "thinking, fast and slow," that i read a few years back. the book introduces the reader to these two different types of thinking and then talks about how we use them in our daily lives. by being aware of these systems, we are able to limit the number of rash decisions that we make. perhaps those who are poorer are simply less aware of these sorts of systems, which then results in them not being able to check against this type of thinking as effectively. there are also multiple other behavioural economics books that i have read which may build on my existing understanding, including "nudge," "the power of habit," and "predictably irrational." all these books provide greater insight into why we make the decisions that we do, and why, unconsciously, those who are poorer may tend to make worse decisions in general.

this is gaurav

i wonder how changes in these different aspects lend themselves to changes in economic productivity. do these different factors increase the steady state rate of economic growth, or do they simply allow countries to produce closer to their steady state rate of economic growth? after doing some searching online, i was not able to find anything specific to these factors, but i did conclude that many of these factors have to do with the steady state rate of economic growth rather than just normal economic productivity, because they are long-term, overarching factors.

this is gaurav

i find it quite interesting how the articles states that there is a "definite and persistent divide between the rich and poor nations within Latin America," but then goes on to claim that "these patterns are not unchanging or immutable." i wonder what it takes for such patterns to change drastically. one potential hypothesis is that the combination of effects such as the geography, culture, and ignorance hypothesis have differing impacts over time, that leads to change in the aforementioned patterns. however, for the most part, factors such as geography, culture, and ignorance are largely static, rather than dynamic (perhaps other than ignorance in the long-term). i wonder if there are potentially other hypotheses for why these changes occur.

yes

naturally