Knowledge, Prosperity and Economic Complexity: How are They Connected?

Ricardo Hausmann Prosperity is associated with technological progress, which is related to advances in scientific and productive knowledge. But where is that knowledge embedded? How is it put to use? And what kind of social structures does it give rise to? This lecture will shed light on why the world is so unequal, why and how some laggard countries catch up and others fall further behind, why inequality within countries is so large, why we need governments and why it is so hard for people to get along. At the core of it all is a view of society as a social brain that has distributed knowledge that must be linked together through complex networks in order to be used. This gives rise to economic complexity and both its convenient and inconvenient implications. Ricardo Hausmann is the founder and Director of Harvard’s Growth Lab and the Rafik Hariri Professor of the Practice of International Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School. He earned a PhD in economics at Cornell University. In addition to positions with the government of Venezuela, he served as the first chief economist of the Inter-American Development Bank and as chair of the IMF-World Bank Development Committee. He is SFI external faculty, and recently named co-chair on the Santa Fe Institute's Science Board, along with Melanie Mitchell. His research interests include issues of growth, macroeconomic stability, international finance, and the social dimensions of development. He brings a networks and statistical mechanics perspective to developmental economics. Learn more at santafe.edu Follow us on social media: / sfiscience / sfiscience / santafeinstitute / santafeinstitute / santafeinstitute Subscribe to SFI's official podcasts: complexity.simplecast.com aliencrashsite.org

[@felwind14]

Thank you for these amazing lectures

[@marcalimarian]

Additionally, this model cookie be useful in more firmly grounding economic theory.

[@marcalimarian]

I like to think of it as “compiled” knowledge, which is I believe what the sleep cycle does overnight.

[@nadiazainal2247]

Watching with interest from Malaysia - It is possible for a nation to build a new cluster of economy that it does not have any basic know-how (i.e. can Malaysia with E&E/O&G/palm oil be successful in developing its own biotech ecosystem?). If it a no, should it double down on the current know-how to move higher in value chain/value add? If yes, how to start?

[@Achrononmaster]

Technology is a distraction @15:30. A low tech country can still fully employ all idle willing labour, and so gradually work to raise their standard of living, regardless of technology or imports. Eventually their exports will pay for tech imports (export surplus, that is, surplus to _domestic needs,_ rather than exploited exports that are tantamount to colonial theft). The key is for the government to be legal monopoly issuers of the tax credit (aka. the state currency), so unlike member states of the eurozone who have ceded their monetary sovereignty to the ECB. Then they have no need to hold foreign debt obligations, and can run full employment without inflation. the private sector market being a secondary effect of the public sector spending (all state currency issued that is not used to pay tax liabilities becomes private savings --- Doyne Farmer knows this, bring him back!). Investment _creates_ savings, not the other way around (the crucial sequence insight of post-Keynesians and MMT).

[@Achrononmaster]

Also, GDP is a rotten measure, why is he using it? Higher GDP is no guarantor of higher standard of living for _all._ Firstly, bombing bridges and running casinos adds to GDP. Secondly, the _distribution_ of national income (all government spending + net exports less tax return) matters --- who gets to grow the food, who gets to eat it and play golf all day. Thirdly, net exporting is a *_real_*_ cost,_ not a real benefit. None of these injustices can be corrected by private markets, since they succumb to Pareto dynamics (rich get richer), only the currency monopoly (government) has the power to fix these injustices. It is the critical institution "owned" by "the people" but throughout the world governments are _de facto_ (through power relations) owned more and more by corporations, so we have democracy without democracy everywhere (yes, you can vote, but the oligarchs, either left-wing or right-wing, get to decide the policy for you regardless). That is the big problem to solve ---- _how to turn governments back over to the demos?_