FT: “Often seen as a relic of the command economy, five-year plans were quietly abandoned by Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and most western democracies prefer to let the economy run according to market forces. But, analysts say, these plans serve as an important instrument for Beijing to signal its future priorities and stamp its authority on China’s sprawling one-party state.”
Anton Howes: “What makes this Nobel win so remarkable, and so pleasantly surprising, is that Mokyr’s work is not the kind that is often published by economics journals, or even many economic history journals anymore. Over the past few decades, journal editors and peer-reviewers have increasingly insisted that papers must present large datasets that have been treated using complex statistical methods in order to make even the mildest claims about what caused what. Although Mokyr is a master of such methods – he was one of the early pioneers of economic history’s quantitative turn – the work for which he has won the prize is firmly and necessarily qualitative. Mokyr’s is the economic history that gets written up in books – his classics are The Lever of Riches, The Gifts of Athena, The Enlightened Economy, and A Culture of Growth – and in readable papers shorn of unnecessary formulae. His is history accessible to the layman, though rigorously applying the insights of economics. The prize is a clear signal from the economics profession that it doesn’t just value the application of fancy statistical methods; its highest prize can go to works of history.”
Todd Sattersten: “There is no limit to how better you can get. The research of Carol Dweck and Anders Ericsson make this point undeniable true. First, we have to believe that better is possible. Second, we have to engage in the consistent and deliberate effort to keep getting better.”
India Dispatch: “India and China are the only countries where quick commerce is working at scale. Both markets have reached multi-billion-dollar categories. But the business models employed by quick commerce players in either nation have almost nothing to do with each other. India’s version is maturing into a distribution layer that sells attention first and items second. China’s version is functioning as a weapon inside platform wars designed to win sessions rather than profits. In India, some key buyers are brand managers carrying budgets and conversion targets. In China, the buyers are super-app strategists trying to keep users and merchants inside the fortress. India has built a dense grid of dark stores covering 2-3km catchments and promising 10-15 minute drops. China is leaning more on broad marketplace configurations operating within 30-60 minute windows and mixes dark stores with picking from offline retail locations. The difference in infrastructure is shaping everything that follows.”
