Weekend Reading, Watching and Listening Recommendations (July 31)

Reinventing the state after COVID-19, Microsoft did the math on how work has changed with HBW, Economic Geography and Path Dependence, How Exposure To Different People and Cultures Improves Creativity

1. Read: Reinventing the state after COVID-19: The job of government is to protect its citizens. The pandemic reveals that key institutions in Europe and the U.S. are no longer up to the job write Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait  and his co-author Adrian Wooldridge

2. Read: Microsoft did the math on how work has changed with HBW. Employees have started using night hours to catch up on work — and not only focused on individual work. During the pandemic, the share of IMs sent between 6 PM and midnight has increased by 52%. [From the Harvard Business Review]

3. Read: GDP Is the Wrong Tool for Measuring What Matters. Joe Stiglitz says it’s time to replace gross domestic product with real metrics of well-being and sustainability

4. Watch: Economic Geography and Path Dependence | Dave Donaldson (MIT): Economic activity in modern economies is staggeringly concentrated. For example, almost 20% of value-added in the United States is currently produced in just three cities, which occupy a mere 1.5% of the country’s land area. What is the cause of this extreme agglomeration of economic activity in a relatively select few locations?

5. Watch: Creating a Credible and Trusted Digital Currency | DAVOS 2020: What trends are shaping the future of digital currencies?

6. Listen: Creativity and Diversity: How Exposure To Different People and Cultures Improves Creativity. Scientific research papers with more diversity in their authors have more citations. Yo-Yo Ma has created the Silk Road Ensemble, which has won multiple Grammys, where they explore the “edge effect”-the space where two ecosystems meet, and magic happens.

7. Listen: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China

8. Chart: The Environmental Cost of Different Protein Sources