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Arithmetic-challenged Brad DeLong asks about ten questions in a post entitled Six Questions About Productivity Growth. Among the questions,

The differences in productivity growth between the U.S. and mainland Europe--especially in infotech-heavy services. Why, and what does it mean?

I think that this is a big question. In the past, Brad has expressed the view that Europe is bound to catch up. On the other hand, there is the Den Beste/Zinsmeister view that Europe is on a downward spiral.

Discussion Question. All of Brad's questions are discussion questions.

Virginia Postrel describes the work of Joel Mokyr on the origins of the Industrial Revolution. He emphasizes the role of connecting pure science with applied technology.

Fertilizer has been used since antiquity, for instance. But before the 19th century, farmers did not know that nitrogen was a crucial ingredient or how it got into the soil. They thus engaged in practices like burning stalks, which released nutrients into the air rather than returning them to the soil.

After the discovery of nitrogen's role, soil scientists and chemists developed synthetic fertilizers and improved farming practices.

Discussion Question. Economists often descrie pure scientific research as a public good, whose social benefits exceed its private benefits. Applied technology is closer to a private good. What are the challenges with combining a public good with a private good?

Why have economists not succeeded in achieving economic growth in less-developed countries? In this essay, I write

There are two reasons that economists are unable to develop a fool-proof program for economic growth. The first issue is that growth is a nonlinear feedback process. The second issue is that economic policies themselves are only one ingredient in the recipe for growth.

Still, as Brad DeLong points out, we can look at Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe and know that trying to violate fundamental economic principles is not a good strategy.

Discussion Question. We talk about liberalization and privatization, but in the essay I point out that in the United States the government is heavily involved in a number of major economic sectors. How can it be determined where such intervention is constructive or not?

In Brad DeLong's Macroeconomics text, he contrasts the convergence of the Western economies with the divergence between the West and the underdeveloped world. That was certainly the way things appeared ten years ago. Today, however, Japan is fading, and Europe's condition is summarized thusly by Karl Zinmeiser.

We have conventionally thought of Europe as having about the same standard of living as Americans. This is less and less true. For the European Union as a whole, GDP per capita is presently less than two thirds of U.S. levels. America's poorest sub-groups, like African Americans, now have higher average income levels than the typical European.

Discussion Question. How does this assessment compare with other economists' views of the state of Europe?

Andrew ('Mindles Dreck') Hofer provides a nice brief survey of some important alternatives to the efficient markets hypothesis for stock prices.

They make the point that bubbles are created from non-stationary, self-correlated re-pricing of fundamentals, including risk. They describe the reality of markets being perceived as safer because they are going up or riskier because they are going down.

Discussion Question. It is argued that if markets are not efficient, then there are unexploited profit opportunities. Are the profit opportunities implicit in the alternative hypotheses equally exploited?

Andy Xie makes a bullish case for the future of China.

China's exports are now equal to 79% of Japan's, compared with 22% in 1990 and 14% in 1980. If it sustains the 12% annual growth rate of the past five years, China's exports will exceed Japan's by 2005 and the US's by 2009.

...China should become a developed economy by 2020, by our estimates. My definition of a developed economy is that 90% of the population have jobs, own their homes, and can afford a vacation every year. In short, I expect China to become a normal economy by then.

Discussion Question. Xie makes no mention of China's political structure. Can a one-party dictatorship, with its need to control information flows, oversee continued economic growth in the information age?

There is a battle between the U.S. and Europe over genetically modified crops, with starving Africans caught in the middle, according to Steven den Beste.

We in the US have contributed huge amounts of corn, hundreds of thousands of tons. But it's grain which was genetically modified. We in the US have been eating it for years with no ill effect. The WHO says that it is completely harmless to humans. And many of the governments in Africa are refusing to accept that grain because, they say, "it's dangerous" but really because if it enters their countries and some is diverted to seed, then their agriculture would be permanently contaminated by genetic modification and they'd never be able to export to Europe again.

Discussion Question. Is Europe's stance on genetically modified crops driven by concerns over safety or by old-fashioned protectionism of its agricultural interests?

Democratic economic adviser Robert Shapiro thinks that tax reform is unlikely.

(Incidentally, 'Mindles Dreck' questions Shapiro's claim that previous tax reform failed to increase economic efficiency and growth.)

A clean flat tax with just an initial exemption—so we don't tax low-wage families into poverty—could raise today's revenues with a single 21 percent rate. Preserve depreciation on existing equipment, and the 21 percent rate hops to 23 percent; add back mortgage interest and employer-provided health insurance, and the rate hits 26.5 percent; include charitable deductions, state and local taxes, and the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the necessary rate is 29 percent.

I think that the problem is that the personal income tax is not what most needs reform. The most regressive tax is the payroll tax. The most costly tax in terms of economic distortions in the corporate income tax. Both of those taxes should be abolished and replaced by higher income taxes (preferably by eliminating deductions).

Discussion Question. Presumably, business and conservatives would support eliminating the corporate income tax. Would labor and liberals support eliminating the payroll tax?

Pete Geddes argues that it is unrealistic to expect us to get away from oil and coal as energy sources over the next two decades. He cites a number of market realities, including

The U.S. will remain dependent on imported oil. This is because our reserves have been almost fully explored and developed. Undiscovered oil in ANWR and the Rocky Mountain Front can only marginally increase domestic supply. But even if every drop of oil we consumed came from domestic sources, international shortfalls would raise domestic oil prices. That's because global economic forces ultimately trump regional markets. Thus, regional prices for crude oil match world prices. For example, in 1979, Great Britain - which was totally energy independent due to production from its North Sea fields - had oil price spikes as high as Japan, which imported all of its oil.

Discussion Question. Politicians and pundits say that we need to achieve energy independence as soon as possible. How would you respond?

One of my sources, 'Mindles Dreck,' pointed to this paper by Tyler Cowen.

In the developed Western democracies, most government expenditures recycle tax dollars, rather than creating a net movement of tax dollars from rich individuals to poor individuals. These expenditures and their associated programs affect individual behavior at the margin, through taxes and subsidies, but many do not redistribute net wealth to the poor.

Cowen argues that when you take into account the adverse effects on growth of high tax rates, the long run impact of the welfare state is to worsen poverty.

Discussion Question. If the government ended Social Security, this would free up "tax capacity" to use for income redistribution. Should economists who favor income redistribution therefore be opposed to Social Security?