http://uclaforecast.com/reviews/Leamer_FlatWorld_060221.pdf

Leamer entertains himself (and the reader) poking some fun at Friedman’s flat world trope. Along the way, he makes shrewd comments on the continuing power of the gravity model of international trade, on economic models, on open sourcing as a major force, on commodities markets vs relational markets, on the difference between “forklifts” (which level differences in innate abilities) and “microphones” (which amplify differences), and on other topics.

Quotations.

Addendum (08/09/07): Bearwatch has comments on Leamer's paper. He is not sanguine that the US will retain its edge:

I don't think Western education systems are geared to excellence, as once they were; so for that reason, as well as IPR enforcement issues, I don't think we can bank on using our intellectual property to sustain our global income differential. I don't think multinational businesses have, or feel they can afford, nationalistic sentiment. And whenever I read statements that start "we need to do x", I get the feeling that x isn't going to happen. Individuals will still make their stellar way, but I can't envision the West as a whole reclining in comfort in a "post-industrial" society.

Adam Mossoff, Professor at Michigan State University College of Law, has written several excellent articles on the history of patents as property. Both are available from SSRN, if you subscribe. If not - WestLaw. See particularly

“Who Cares What Thomas Jefferson Thought About Patents? Reevaluating the Patent 'Privilege' in Historical Context,“ 92 Cornell Law Review 953 (2007), and

“Patents as Constitutional Private Property: the Historical Protection of Patents Under the Takings Clause,” 87 Boston Univ. Law Review ___ (2007) (forthcoming).

For a précis of his analysis, see the amicus brief written by Prof. Mossoff (with Prof. Richard Epstein of UChi as Counsel of Record) on behalf of 28 law professors supporting cert in Zoltek v. US.

Why this matters (from the abstract to the BU article):

Conventional wisdom maintains that early courts never secured patents as constitutional private property under the Takings Clause. In examining long-forgotten judicial opinions and legislative records, this Article reveals that this is a profoundly mistaken historical claim. Nineteenth-century courts, securing to inventors the fruits of their labors, enthusiastically applied the Takings Clause to patents. . . . .

[The 19^th Century] intellectual history is important because it exposes the pervasive misunderstanding of the history . . . . As patented drugs and other inventions are increasingly the subject of regulations, this Essay establishes that the constitutional and policy issues inherent in these governmental actions are not new. Courts have long embraced patents as constitutional private property.

http://www.cps.org.uk/latestpublications

A former BBC producer looks back in wonder at his earlier self:

But we were not just anti-[Prime Minister Harold] Macmillan; we were anti-industry, anti-capitalism, anti-advertising, anti-selling, anti-profit, anti-patriotism, anti-monarchy, anti-Empire, anti-police, anti-armed forces, anti-bomb, anti-authority. Almost anything that made the world a freer, safer and more prosperous place, you name it, we were anti it.

Most of US academia is anti-capitalism, anti-industry, anti-selling, anti-profit, so Jay’s explanations are worth reading.