Globalization by the Data

The World is thoroughly interconnected physically and economically. Trade for most countries is about 50% of GDP. Climate change affects us all and has enormous economic consequences. The World’s human population at 8 billion and growing is already straining some resources. We look at the economics of Globalization, the distribution of income and wealth both within and between countries, and how productivity, trade, and migration have affected workers in both rich and developing countries.

Globalization by the Data

Productivity - the engine of growth

The Industrial Revolution(s)

Labor productivity tells us how much labor it takes to produce something. A horse lets a farmer plow a field […]

Productivity Increases and Deindustrialization

As we’ve just seen, the ongoing industrial revolution, and the concurrent agricultural revolution, have dramatically increased labor productivity in the […]

Agricultural Productivity and Employment in Advanced Economies

Looking at agriculture, we note that the US has nearly balanced imports and exports in agricultural products, and that output […]

Goods Producing Productivity

“Goods production” in US statistics includes mining, construction, and manufacturing. Some international statistics use “industry” instead. In any case construction […]

Services Productivity

Here again is our table of employment changes from 1960 to 2010 and 2020 in the United States. Industry Sector […]

How Developing Countries Grow Productivity

Up to now, we’ve looked at productivity in countries that are described as “advanced economies” meaning that by and large […]

Productivity Growth Worldwide Distribution

Productivity Growth Worldwide Distribution The map below shows the current GDP per capita of countries around the world. GDP per […]

World Volume and Patterns of Trade

The chart below shows imports, exports, and the trade balance of the US as a percentage of GDP. Figure 27: […]

The US Trade Deficit

In our look at employment by sector we saw that manufacturing employment has declined in developed countries even when, like […]

Advanced Economies – Benefits and Costs of Trade

Benefits of Trade Trade has enormous potential economic benefits as we showed in the primer, regardless of whether it is […]

Developing Economies – Benefits and Costs of Trade

The above discussion focused on trade in advanced economies, what about developing ones? The general benefits of trade apply to […]

US Current Income Snapshot

World & US Income and Wealth Distribution Intro

As we have seen, modern productivity in agriculture and manufacturing is sufficient to supply everyone with a decent material standard […]

US Current Income Snapshot

Gross Domestic Product measures the value of all output produced by a country for final sale. Because all such output […]

US Wage and Salary Income

Except at the very top, most income still comes from labor. Looking just at labor, who makes the most today? […]

US Non-Wage Income

Business Income The national accounting of personal income includes a category for Business Income, and we’ve seen that it’s a […]

Wages For Most Have Grown, but Slowly Since 1970

One often noted statistic is that, for most occupations, inflation adjusted wages have not kept up with labor productivity increases. […]

Wage And Income Inequality Have Increased

As we’ve just seen, the substitution of capital for labor can increase wage inequality, and higher corporate profits increase income […]

US Income Summary

We’ve covered a lot of ground in looking at US income distribution and how it has changed, let’s summarize some […]

World Income Distribution

Income Distribution Between Countries Worldwide, income varies widely between countries and also within countries. GDP per capita gives us an […]

Wealth Distribution

Income can be entirely consumed or part of it can be saved. If one saves over a period of time, […]

Economic Mobility

For almost all people around the world, income comes mostly from labor, and their “wealth” is built from saving and […]

Migration Introduction

People, as they have always done, move from country to country, or internally within a country, leaving one location to […]

US In-Migration

The Numbers Given all the noise about immigration in the US, one might think there has been major change over […]

World Migration

Worldwide, migrants fall into 3 broad categories: refugees, emigrants, and overseas workers. To repeat the numbers, in 2020 there were […]

Migration Summary

Despite the fact that physical migration is easier than ever because of improved lower cost transportation and communications, the fraction […]

Sustainability Intro

If you’re running a business, sustainability means a business model that will work over an indefinite period of time. If […]

Population and Consumption Growth in a Finite World

Population Growth and “Peak Human” The chart below shows how the earth’s human population has taken off on a logarithmic […]

The Science – in Very Brief

The biggest sustainability problem we have is not “climate change”, it’s the cause of that change which is the emission […]

Benefits and Costs of Reducing Greenhouse Gases

Economics Benefit of Green House Gas Reduction Economists have weighed in on the costs versus the benefits of greenhouse gas […]

Getting to Net Zero

Where We Are Now and Trends The Paris Climate Agreement called for actions to limit global warming to 1.5° C […]

Climate Change Summary

In brief, the “sustainability” issue of climate change is really the unsustainable way we emit greenhouse gases. When we burn […]

Land and Other Sustainability Issues

Land With 8 billion people on the planet, climate change isn’t the only sustainability issue we humans [RF1] are facing. It […]

The Big Picture: A Brief Summary

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