Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies"Hidalgo has made a bold attempt to synthesize a large body of cutting-edge work into a readable, slender volume. This is the future of growth theory." --Financial Times What is economic growth? And why, historically, has it occurred in only a few places? Previous efforts to answer these questions have focused on institutions, geography, finances, and psychology. But according to MIT's antidisciplinarian César Hidalgo, understanding the nature of economic growth demands transcending the social sciences and including the natural sciences of information, networks, and complexity. To understand the growth of economies, Hidalgo argues, we first need to understand the growth of order. At first glance, the universe seems hostile to order. Thermodynamics dictates that over time, order-or information-disappears. Whispers vanish in the wind just like the beauty of swirling cigarette smoke collapses into disorderly clouds. But thermodynamics also has loopholes that promote the growth of information in pockets. Although cities are all pockets where information grows, they are not all the same. For every Silicon Valley, Tokyo, and Paris, there are dozens of places with economies that accomplish little more than pulling rocks out of the ground. So, why does the US economy outstrip Brazil's, and Brazil's that of Chad? Why did the technology corridor along Boston's Route 128 languish while Silicon Valley blossomed? In each case, the key is how people, firms, and the networks they form make use of information. Seen from Hidalgo's vantage, economies become distributed computers, made of networks of people, and the problem of economic development becomes the problem of making these computers more powerful. By uncovering the mechanisms that enable the growth of information in nature and society, Why Information Grows lays bear the origins of physical order and economic growth. Situated at the nexus of information theory, physics, sociology, and economics, this book propounds a new theory of how economies can do not just more things, but more interesting things. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - mavaddat - LibraryThingThe first few chapters are a terrific exposition on the natural (that is, not anthropogenic) origins of information using the models of Boltzmann, Shannon, and another guy whose name escapes me. I had to stop reading at around page 83 because I lost interest at the same time that I lost the book. Read full review
WHY INFORMATION GROWS: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies
User Review - KirkusAn interdisciplinary theorist, Hidalgo, the Macro Connections group leader at the MIT Media Lab, invites us to understand the economy in an entirely different way. In the wake of the 2008 recession ... Read full review
Contents
Prologue | |
Introduction | |
PART I Bits in Atoms | |
1 The Secret to Time Travel | |
2 The Body of the Meaningless | |
3 The Eternal Anomaly | |
PART II Crystallized Imagination | |
4 Out of Our Heads | |
8 In Links We Trust | |
PART IV The Complexity of the Economy | |
9 The Evolution of Economic Complexity | |
10 The Sixth Substance | |
11 The Marriage of Knowledge Knowhow and Information | |
PART V Epilogue | |
12 The Evolution of Physical Order from Atoms to Economies | |
Acknowledgments | |
Other editions - View all
Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies Cesar Hidalgo Limited preview - 2015 |
Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies Cesar Hidalgo Limited preview - 2015 |
Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies Cesar Hidalgo No preview available - 2015 |
Common terms and phrases
ability to crystallize accumulate knowledge atoms biological Boltzmann Bugatti capacity chapter Chile Coase complex products connect consider cost countries create crystallize imagination crystals of imagination diversity economic complexity economic growth economists edge and knowhow embody information emerge energy entropy example explain factors Francis Fukuyama Fukuyama GDP per capita genes genetic growth of information help us understand idea Ilya Prigogine individuals industries information grow information-rich interactions involves knowhow embodied knowhow needed knowhow required knowl knowledge and knowhow large networks learning limit manufacturing Mark Granovetter mechanisms MIT Media Lab models nestedness networks of firms nomic Nova Lima organized out-of-equilibrium systems people’s personbyte theory physical order planet Prigogine process information Ricardo Hausmann Rubik’s cube Shannon social capital social networks society solids stadium steady Steve Jobs structure tion trust tweet ubiquity universe unpack volumes of knowledge whirlpool