June, 2006

It’s Like Hurricanes

by Edward E. Leamer

June 20th, 2006

Rather than in the abstract, try tackling the following problem.
I grew up in the small town of Vestal near Binghamton, New York. The major industry of the area in 1900 was cigars, which left when tobacco fashion shifted to cigarettes and cigarette production was mechanized. No matter, by 1950 the Endicott Johnson shoe company had [...]

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Why Openness Matters

by Richard Florida

June 19th, 2006

Robin, Thanks again for your thoughtful comments. The elaborations and clarifications in this dialogue are mighty useful. In that vein, one last clarification: My theory does not say regions “cause” hackers or anyone else to be innovative. It says instead that regions that have these “low barriers to entry” attract more potentially innovative people. As [...]

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To Clarify

by Robin Hanson

June 19th, 2006

Just to be clear, I don’t claim that Richard intended at any point to enter the culture wars, or to advocate for a political viewpoint. And as a theorist, I am not taking a position on the quality or conclusions of his empirical analysis. His argument combines empirical claims of certain observed regularities with theoretical [...]

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Mobile Human Capital and the Culture Wars

by Richard Florida

June 19th, 2006

This is good—really good. I like Robin’s persistence. He makes me think. And that’s always good. Let me take some time to reply.
First off, I think the passage Robin quotes from my book speaks for itself. There is a correlation between these two things, the gay index and the bohemian index and (1) innovation [...]

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