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12. Cloud Computing: Policy Challenges for a Globally Integrated Innovation, Production and Market Platform
- Author:
- John Zysman and Jonathan Murray
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
- Abstract:
- “Cloud computing” is much more than simply a new set of technologies and business models. It is rapidly emerging as the platform that will underpin the next generation of digital products and services. Cloud Computing is transforming how consumers, companies, and governments store information, how they process and exchange that information, and how they utilize computing power. Consequently, it opens a new set of policy discussions while at the same time underling the importance of old debates.
- Topic:
- Government, Intelligence, Markets, and Science and Technology
13. Deforestation's Challenge to Green Growth in Brazil
- Author:
- Benjamin S. Allen, Charles Travers, and Louise Travers
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
- Abstract:
- Understanding Brazil's green growth and emissions story requires a second look. Brazil's energy matrix is approximately 46% renewable, so when one compares the share of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from energy in Brazil to that of most OECD countries, Brazil is doing relatively well (IPEA 2010, 133). However, looking at energy alone misses the core GHG story in Brazil: The principal drivers of GHG emissions in the country are not energy production or heavy industry, but rather deforestation and agriculture. Deforestation is responsible for about 55% of Brazil's GHG emissions, and agriculture for another 25% (McKinsey Company 2009, 7). In fact, the two areas of emissions are intimately linked: deforestation is principally a problem of agriculture. Cattle ranching and soybean and sugar cane farming are the major industries contributing to Brazil's emergence today as an agricultural and agroenergy superpower – and are directly and indirectly responsible for deforestation in Brazil's largest forests, the Amazon and Atlantic (Banco Mundial 2010, Barros 2009, Margulis 2004, McAllister 2008b, Nassar 2009, Nepstad et al. 2008, Sennes and Narciso 2009). By extension, because Brazil's large and growing renewable energy sector is principally based on agriculture, it has ties to deforestation and may not be as green as it first appears.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Emerging Markets, Energy Policy, and Environment
- Political Geography:
- Brazil and Latin America
14. Toward Institutional Innovation in US Labor Market Policy: Learning from Europe?
- Author:
- Tobias Schulze-Cleven and Henry Farrell
- Publication Date:
- 07-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
- Abstract:
- What keeps US labor market institutions from more effectively helping the nation cope with the current economic crisis and secure its future prosperity? What is the scope for politically feasible innovation in US labor market policy? These are crucial policy questions. As a result of the global financial crisis, the US unemployment rate climbed into double digits and has remained higher than in many European countries. The US is experiencing the highest level of unemployment for a generation and the highest rate of long-term unemployment for more than half a century. American families are suffering from financial hardship without any fault of their own, and many of the currently unemployed will find it hard to re-enter the workforce during the recovery. Nor is the government easily able to use current programs to help those seeking work. Even though policymakers have launched new initiatives during the past year, the US remains almost uniquely weak among advanced industrialized democracies in its lack of policy programs to support the populace in successfully engaging with the labor market.
- Topic:
- Economics, Markets, Labor Issues, and Financial Crisis
- Political Geography:
- United States and Europe
15. From Religion to Reality: Energy systems transformation for sustainable prosperity
- Author:
- John Zysman and Mark Huberty
- Publication Date:
- 09-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
- Abstract:
- There are compelling and varied arguments for moving to low-carbon, high-efficiency energy systems. Reducing emissions to limit or avoid climate change leads the public debate, but reduced dependence on imported energy, avoidance of conflicts over energy resources, and the rising price of fossil fuels also motivate action. Nevertheless, the potential cost and difficulty of making the transition to a new energy system have generated substantial opposition from entrenched economic interests and consumers alike.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Economics, Energy Policy, and Markets
16. The Digital Transformation of Services: From Economic Sinkhole to Productivity Driver
- Author:
- John Zysman, Kenji Kushida, Niels Christian Nielsen, Stuart Feldman, and Jonathan Murray
- Publication Date:
- 04-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
- Abstract:
- A fundamental transformation of services is underway, driven by developments in information and communications technology (ICT) tools, the uses to which they are being put, and the networks on which they run. Services were once considered a sinkhole of the economy, immune to significant technological or organizational productivity increases. Now, they are widely recognized as a source of productivity growth and dynamism in the economy that is changing the structure of employment, the division of labor, and the character of work and its location. Yet, the actual character of this transformation is often obscured by the increase in jobs labeled as services and by a focus on the digital technologies that, certainly, are facilitating this transformation. This transformation, central to the growth of productivity and competition in the economy, poses basic policy and business choices.
17. The Dissolution of Sectors: Do Politics and Sectors Still Go Together?
- Author:
- Mark Huberty
- Publication Date:
- 04-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
- Abstract:
- Technological change has altered firm behavior in ways that are rendering sectoral models of political economy inadequate for understanding the economic and political consequences of modern market evolution. I use cases from the computer and medical devices industries to demonstrate this process, its key variables, and consequences for firm preferences. Firms in both industries have moved into new sectors with integrated goods-services product strategies. In doing so, they have disrupted, or put into dispute, the political configurations that characterized those sectors in the past. I conclude with three suggestions on why the disintegration of sectors remains uneven across industries: that it may depend on the degree of information dependence in the industry; on the availability of suitable regulatory templates to guide firm action; or on the prior-existing role of services in the firm's home sector business.
- Topic:
- Markets
18. The State in A Double Bind: Staying Wealthy in a Changing Global Economy
- Author:
- John Zysman and Dan Breznitz
- Publication Date:
- 04-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
- Abstract:
- Can Wealthy Nations Stay Rich In A Rapidly Changing Global Economy? This was the question with which we began our inquiry several years ago. The policy objective for governments is classic and enduring: sustain the growth of employment and productivity to assure expanding real incomes of the citizens. Success requires that—under free and fair market conditions, the community (firms and populace) can produce goods and services that meet the test of international markets while simultaneously expanding the real income of its citizens. I But the strategies required to achieve the goals and the debates about those strategies have evolved in two different directions, seemingly proposing alternate and contradictory priorities on governments.
- Topic:
- Government and Markets
19. Cutting Through the Fog: Understanding the Competitive Dynamics in Cloud Computing
- Author:
- John Zysman, Dan Breznitz, and Kenji E. Kushida
- Publication Date:
- 05-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
- Abstract:
- Cloud Computing is growing rapidly, and it is likely to become part of the dominant computing infrastructure for individuals, start-up firms, small-medium businesses, and large enterprises. However, as it is still an emerging set of technologies and business models, discussions of Cloud Computing have not reached the level of clarity or shared conceptions of more mature areas of computing. The purpose of this document is threefold.
- Topic:
- International Trade and Finance and Science and Technology
20. Fordism Light: Hyundai's Challenge to Coordinated Capitalism
- Author:
- Gregory W. Noble
- Publication Date:
- 03-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
- Abstract:
- Despite receiving a strikingly pessimistic evaluation in the acclaimed volume The Machine that Changed the World (Womack et al., 1990), the Hyundai-Kia group has overcome numerous crises to become the fourth largest auto producer in the world.
- Topic:
- International Trade and Finance and Markets
- Political Geography:
- South Korea