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Daniel Altman
Chief Economist, Big Think
Daniel Altman is Big Think's Chief Economist and an adjunct faculty member at New York University's Stern School of Business. Daniel wrote economic commentary for The Economist, The New York Times, and The International Herald Tribune before founding North Yard Economics, a non-profit consulting firm serving developing countries, in 2008. In between, he served as an economic advisor in the British government and wrote four books, most recently Outrageous Fortunes: The Twelve Surprising Trends That Will Reshape the Global Economy.
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Pervasive computing is all about interaction between the billions - soon to be trillions - of microprocessors that have infiltrated virtually every aspect of our lives. A new book,"Trillions", argues that we have to design an entire living environment where those devices communicate with each other and with us.
Plenty of people are happy for their leaders and bosses to make choices for them, as long as they probably would have made similar choices themselves. Yet when leaders and bosses don't truly represent the interests of their constituents and employees, nudging can be toxic.
Today Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times has posted a thoughtful blog about universal health coverage, inspired in part by the tragic events in Aurora, Colorado. I’ve been involved in the […]
Are the Republicans deliberately hurting the economy to hamper President Obama's chances of reelection, or are they just doing it because of misbegotten ideas?
Almost everyone agrees that poverty is not a good thing. Almost everyone would like to end poverty. Almost everyone would benefit from ending poverty. So why don’t we? To find […]
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The United States is faced with multi-hundred billion dollar deficits stretching year after year into the future. How did it happen and what should be done about it?
Gold is in fashion these days thanks to uncertainty in the global economy and worries that the United States and other countries will devalue their debts through inflation. Gold is valuable, and […]
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Economist Daniel Altman on gold’s economic stability and why we shouldn’t return to the gold standard.
Even economists aren't satisfied with gross domestic product and incomes anymore. Now we also want to know how happy people are and how much they feel they can realize their potential.
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Big Think Chief Economist Daniel Altman explains the benefits and the difficulties of taxing so-called “externalities,” such as carbon emissions.
The challenge for democracies is to become just as farsighted as the state capitalist systems that have drawn the world's envy. But while we try to bring about this small revolution in our thinking, the state capitalists may be dealing with a much bigger revolution of their own.
Sometimes it's better to do something - anything - rather than nothing at all. That's the lesson of the old parable of Buridan's ass, where the poor animal is faced with two haystacks and, unable to decide which is bigger, dies of hunger. . .
Are the financial markets rational? It’s a tough claim to make as share prices and bond yields zoom up and down during a single day, hour, or even second, sometimes […]
What’s the big deal about J.P. Morgan’s $2 billion trading loss? Austan Goolsbee, an economic advisor to President Obama, said the American public should be concerned because, in his words, […]
What will the world look like without a single superpower setting the rules? That’s the question that Ian Bremmer, the political risk expert, tries to answer in his new book, […]
Changes in economic relationships simply don't have much effect on already wealthy despots. Just like the honey badger, they do what they want.
Alan Beattie's new book, "Who's in Charge Here?" takes a planet-wide look at what's been going wrong with the global economy.
Will longer working lives - like longer working hours - mean fewer people being employed? We're almost certain to find out, as Malthus rears his well-coiffed head again.