The Weightless World

Strategies for Managing the Digital Economy

by Diane Coyle

MIT Press, 1999

ISBN: 9780262032599
Pages: 250

Category: Strategy

In this summary you will learn

• Why weightlessness symbolizes the economic effects of advances in information and communication technology
• Why technology’s impact on employment will depend on the general economic policy framework
• What world governments must do to adapt to the radical shifting of economic and political components

Why you should read The Weightless World

U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan originated using "weightless" to describe computer-powered information technology. Diane Coyle employs his metaphor to explain that the European world is afflicted with unemployment and insecurity because of the evolution from industrial output to weightlessness. Her view of the new technology’s international economic impact is distinctly European/British. She paints her strategy for managing the digital economy with a colorful but broad brush: better education, international ethical standards, governmental flexibility, liberalism. Her writing features quirky phrases, challenging sentence structure, and a few British spellings. Coyle includes surprising anecdotes and sparkling quotes from diverse sources - a valuable lexicon for further reading. getAbstract.com recommends this book to those with an eclectic, liberal, literate, European view of the difference between the U.S. economic experience and that of the rest of the world. Such a reader will be delighted here.

About the Author

Diane Coyle is economics editor of The Independent, in London, England.

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