Michael Giberson The Washington Post‘s business section, no doubt eager to jump into the Mason Mania that has permeated the rest of the newspaper, ran a story today about the other star team on campus: the economics department. It’s a fairly lightweight story — after all it ain’t basketball — but they spelled all the …
Lynne Kiesling Today’s Wall Street Journal has a commentary from Al Gore and David Blood that asks the question: when will we start accounting for environmental costs? Gore and Blood begin by invoking the concept of sustainability, and the relationship between capitalism and sustainability. Sadly, they do not bother to define what they mean by …
The Wooly Concept of Sustainability: Gore and Blood in the Wsj Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Researchers have used a nematode to clone pigs that produce meat that is high in omega-3 fatty acids (see articles from Wired and the International Herald Tribune, for example). Yay, bacon as a health food! The Wired article notes how consumer tastes are driving this research: Hoping to create healthier, cheaper and tastier …
Lynne Kiesling We’ve seen lots of discussion of how dysfunctional the US patent system is at the moment; from business process patents to laws of nature patents to the recent Research in Motion (Blackberry) lawsuit, we see the pernicious entry barriers that too broad a patent policy can erect. In today’s Wall Street Journal, Adam …
Innovation and Its Discontents: Jaffe and Lerner in Wsj Read More »
Michael Giberson Virginia Postrel says “Economics saves lives.” She referring to the New England Kidney Exchange, which is based on the economic systems design work of Al Roth at Harvard. (I would call it “market design work,” but using the “market” word might suggest the institution runs afoul of current laws against bribing people to …
Michael Giberson Back in December I wrote: I think quality, rather than customer goodwill and trust, will be the truly sustainable approach to providing a premium to small [coffee] producers in less-developed nations. To that end, programs like the Cup of Excellence are the better approach. It provides a rigorous quality scoring system followed by …
Lynne Kiesling There is a fascinating article in today’s Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) about a lawsuit that Coca-Cola bottlers have brought against Coca-Cola. The issue is Wal-Mart’s request to the company for direct shipment of Powerade to Wal-Mart warehouses. One large bottler, Coca-Cola Enterprises (which is responsible for 77% of C-C sales in the …
Lynne Kiesling Yes, incentives do matter … Brian Micklethwait finds that how he pays for Internet access changes how he uses it. In transition between service providers, he finds himself with a slow, pay-for-time connection, which has changed how he uses the Internet: Suddenly, I find myself back in the world of “the news”, in …
Incentives Matter: How to Price Internet Service Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Today is a dynamism day here at KP, whether it’s marketing or technology or business models. Business Week has an interview with Frank Moss, the new head of MIT’s MediaLab. He points out the importance of several things that I think are crucial for dynamic innovation: entrepreneurship, new models of collaboration and invention, …
Lynne Kiesling I knew Grant McCracken would pick up on and analyze the new Australian travel marketing campaign. If you haven’t seen it, here it is. What’s good about the line “So where the bloody hell are you?” is that it captures what I take to be a peculiarly national endowment. Australians have so perfected …
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