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It seems more top-tier economists are coming around to the idea that robots and technology could be having a greater influence on the economy (and this crisis in particular) than previously appreciated. Paul Krugman being the latest.

Tyler Cowen has a nice essay up at The American Interest on an Export-Oriented America. He offers us three reasons to be optimistic about the US export future: artificial intelligence, shale oil and gas, and a rising Asian Middle Class. I think he more or less nails the last two, what I refer as the Exxon and Apple economies, respectively.

The lessons from an infant industry, including the power of cooperation and importance of regulating with a light touch

The internet is reshaping our economy from one of huge corporations with lots of jobs to huge platforms with lots of income streams

" Since 1800, technological advance has been associated with economic growth. The new stuff being built saved labor input, which was then put into the construction of other things. However, the most recent technological advances may not be growth-inducing. As Samuelson puts it, "Gordon sees the Internet, smartphones and tablets as tilted toward entertainment, not labor-saving."" Professor Edward Castronova, who once wrote a book about the exodus to virtual worlds, sees some more evidence of an exodus recession.  He's not just talking about virtual worlds however, but also about your average digital stuff such as tablets and smartphones. It makes us want less 'real' things and so it makes it harder for the economy to grow. One might say, let's measure growth in a different way, taking into account this digital shift. But then again, our social security for instance depends on the economy and the money which is actually earned there.  So will we all hide into virtual worlds to forget the misery of the recession-ridden 'real world'? Or is this speculation very wrong, as the digital evolution is now affecting the 'world of the atoms' in a radical way (think 3D printers, hardware and bio-hacking). 

What Apple teaches us about the American economy, and no, it is not all what you would expect; 

For advanced economies, such imbalances would likely lead to more long- term and permanent joblessness. More young people without post-secondary training would fail to get a start in the job market and older workers would drop out because they don't qualify for jobs that are being created. The polarization of incomes between high- and low-skill workers could become even more pronounced, slowing the advance in national living standards, and increasing public-sector burdens and social tensions. In some advanced economies, less-skilled workers could very well grow up poorer than their parents, in real terms.

Yet 3D printing is just one of many production technologies and trends which are transforming the way companies will be able to make things in the future. The old rules of manufacturing, such as "you must seek economies of scale" and "you must reduce unit-labour costs", are being cast aside. New machines can print every item differently. More flexible robots are getting cheaper and better at doing all the boring and dirty stuff.

"Our group designs new interfaces that integrate digital content in people's lives in more fluid and seamless ways. Our aim is to make it easier and more intuitive to benefit from the wealth of useful digital information and services. " Pattie Maes and her group at MIT, lots of fascinating projects here, often making me think 'why isn't this ubiquitous right now already?' One of the reasons might be 'the economy, stupid' - like the idea of being able to swipe a file from one mobile app to another, seamlessly.  But eventually we'll get there. The future is fluid. 

"Bloomfield is working on a platform, called the Synthetic Economy Research Environment, that could enable economists to produce games that simulate large-scale economic phenomenon like a central bank." I often wondered whether professor Robert Bloomfield (Johnson School of Management at Cornell University) was still involved in virtual worlds research. He was the charismatic host of the rather high-brow Metanomics talk-show in Second Life. Now I got my answer, via Brad Plumer who published a post about the economics of video games on Wonkblog at The Washington Post. 

Dixit on 'the 21st Century's Economic Hurricane', by New Economist: Princeton emeritus professor Avinash Dixit is always worth reading, even when he is speculating about the economy over the next hundred years. Likening economic forecasting to weather forecasting (plenty of caveats and uncertainty), his approach is suitably skeptical. Here's how he kicks off:

n a forceful, hard-hitting policy brief, Executive Director Ann Mettler and Senior Fellow Anthony Williams look at the deep-seated changes afoot in our economy.

America is transforming before our eyes, and with our focus on the short-term economic crisis, we are blind to what might very well be the most fundamental economic shift of the past 50 years: the nine-to-five, 40-hour-week job with benefits and some security is fast going the way of the compact disc.

"We've noted on more than one occasion that economists may be missing a trick when it comes to how technology is changing the global economy. More so, that developments like 3D printing, could even pose a black-swan risk for Asia in their own right."

The former head of IBM managed his organization through the disruptive changes of economy and technology. 

Paul Krugman about Apple and agglomeration, he endorses the article from the nytimes, and refers to his own essay on the economies of agglomeration.