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The Great Waves in Economic History
In western economic history, living standards appear to have had three "supercycles" of rise and fall of economic activity over the past 4,000 years.
Rafael R. Guthmann
Feb 21
7
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Democracy and development
It appears to be the case that the foremost causal factor in social and economy development is democracy
Rafael R. Guthmann
Feb 6
4
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Democracy and development
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January 2023
Should intellectual property be enforced?
Should patents exist? It appears that they do, although, granting a monopoly of 20 years to new technologies might be too much.
Rafael R. Guthmann
Jan 18
6
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Should intellectual property be enforced?
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November 2022
The Democratic Stationary Bandit
The modern welfare state is what happens when you mix Ghenghis-Khan with Classical Athens
Rafael R. Guthmann
Nov 12, 2022
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The Democratic Stationary Bandit
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Virtual public goods and Musk's purchase of Twitter
Musk's purchase of Twitter suggests that society might need virtual public squares besides private social media sites
Rafael R. Guthmann
Nov 10, 2022
5
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Virtual public goods and Musk's purchase of Twitter
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Why do billions speak languages with large Latin heritage while less than 14 million speak languages derived from Ancient Greek?
Answer: historical contingency that Latin's influence could be preserved in Western Europe while most Greek speaking regions of antiquity the local…
Rafael R. Guthmann
Nov 8, 2022
6
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Why do billions speak languages with large Latin heritage while less than 14 million speak languages derived from Ancient Greek?
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September 2022
Ancient scientists and the economic performance of antiquity
Ancient economic history can be summarized by: Fast growth from 800 BC to 300 BC, slow growth from 300 BC to around 1 AD, negative growth from 1 AD to…
Rafael R. Guthmann
Sep 21, 2022
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The Brazilian Trap
Countries in the "middle income trap" are there for specific reasons
Rafael R. Guthmann
Sep 16, 2022
9
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The Brazilian Trap
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August 2022
Ancient Inequality
Not only was the Classical Greek world likely more prosperous than the Roman world but also it was more egalitarian
Rafael R. Guthmann
Aug 1, 2022
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Ancient Inequality
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July 2022
Beware the GDP
We have to stop thinking that crude estimates of a platonic concept we call GDP are factual information
Rafael R. Guthmann
Jul 5, 2022
4
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Beware the GDP
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The Great Convergence
"The Great Divergence" gets it backwards: Different civilizations which never had convergent trajectories have converged in recent centuries
Rafael R. Guthmann
Jul 2, 2022
2
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The Great Convergence
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June 2022
On the economic performance of different periods of antiquity
The evidence appears to suggest that the politically decentralized Classical Greek world was substantially wealthier than the centralized Roman Empire
Rafael R. Guthmann
Jun 25, 2022
22
18
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On the economic performance of different periods of antiquity
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