Of course we had snow to start the week, so while bundled up once again I went out for a run and listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a great talk by Jean Tirole on industrial policy and innovation at the Mannheim Centre for Competition and Innovation (MaCCI) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf5ubOJtnbQ

Next was a slate of talks at the Immigration Policy Lab:

Leah Boustan - intergenerational immigrant mobility https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaIfjhcbtjw

Jens Hainmueller - refugee labor market integration in Germany https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G-vy187i1c

Michael Clemens - international students and innovation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaiIhq826H4

Next was the "Global History of Work Handbook," edited by Karin Hofmeester and Marcel van der Linden. This book is an incredible collection of essays on different aspects of global labor history, historiography, and labor organization. The section that looks at labor changes over the centuries from a geographic perspective is especially great, although obviously given the scale of the task some areas are left out (e.g. Japan 😢). Each section also includes a suggested reading list, which in and of itself is invaluable. The essays do have a very socialist bent, which for me was tolerable but was occasionally annoying. A big oversight is that there is virtually no details on what the work people did actually entailed - instead, the book is focused on the macro organization and composition of labor. I would've been more forgiving on this point if the book had a different title. Regardless, this collection is so insightful on the topics it does cover that it demands to be read by folks remotely connected to understanding work and management. Highly recommend https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/59491

Next was "Virtually Amish" by Lindsay Ems. As someone who grew up in Pennsylvania, I was a bit familiar with the Amish community coming into this book, but Ems' focus on how some of these communities interrogate and adapt new technologies gave me an incredible, unique window into an important part of that culture. This ethnography was especially fascinating because it shows how the Amish do in fact adopt new technologies, but rather than being an individual choice it is one debated within communities and always evaluated through a communal lens. Beyond that, even technologies that aren't adopted as is are often adapted to conform with the community's norms (e.g. emails by fax, solar power for hydroponic farms but not for TVs, cell phones with only calling capabilities, etc.). It was extremely interesting to see what technologies these communities did find valuable - cell phones and GPS often make the cut, but broad internet access didn't - since I have a hypothesis that their adoption decisions correlate with concrete value of these technologies more broadly. As a radically different alternative model to technology development and adoption, this book provides an essential provocation for how we can reimagine how we innovate. Highly recommend https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262543637/virtually-amish/

Next was "Bookshelf" by Lydia Pyne. This book is an enjoyable, brief tour through the history of book storage and organization, with particular attention paid to pre-printing press methods. Pyne provides great detail on the practice of chaining books to bookshelves, as well as some interesting examples of rotating bookshelves from Buddhist temples. I also liked the sections that dealt with modern library organization and storage methods, and I wish the book were longer so that there could be more exploration of those topics https://www.pynecone.org/bookshelf

Last was "Startup Capitalism" by Robyn Klingler-Vidra and Ramón Pacheco Pardo. This book does a great job bringing the traditionally omitted lessons on startup ecosystem policy from East Asia to the forefront, demonstrating how the varied, dynamic economies and governments of the region have grappled with spurring startup growth. The more recent track record is of course mixed, but the authors clearly lay out the different business environments and how they have intersected with policymaker goals to craft the systems that have emerged today https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501781391/startup-capitalism/