5 Conclusion This chapter has enabled you to think about the essential role of technological change in determining economy-wide growth and the growth of firms and industries. We have seen that many issues surrounding the new economy are really issues around the dynamics of technological change: rapid increases in productivity, the emergence of many small firms, new products and new processes, and so on. The main lesson of the course has been to provide a historical perspective to the introduction of new t
4.5 Technological change In both industries the fall in prices was driven by radical changes in the production of the products. How might we investigate the technological changes and the changes in quality that occurred in both industries simultaneously with the drastic fall in prices? There are various methods used by economists to measure technological change. Some methods focus on the ‘inputs’ into the innovation process, such as the spending on research and development by firms. But this is not ideal as it do
4.4 Prices and industrial change Many of the new entrants entered by introducing a new variation of the product. In fact, the early period in both industries was characterised by much technological change in the form of product innovation. Once a product standard emerged, product and process innovations around that standard led to a drastic fall in the product price in both industries. We will now look at some of the indicators of this turbulence in technology and prices. How can we look at price changes over time in i
Keep on learning   There are more than 800 courses on OpenLearn for you to Learning outcomes After studying this course, you should be able to: identify the value and best way of note taking. Introduction This course will help you identify the value and best ways of note taking. It is based on listening to an audio file that contains a discussion between teaching team members of D218 Social Policy: Welfare, Power and Diversity, a current Open University course. It was originally 23 minutes in length and was recorded in 1998. This OpenLearn course provides a sample of Level 1 study in Author(s): 1 Capturing the oil industry The oil industry is perhaps the archetypal globalised industry. Dominated by a few multi-national companies, it is highly centralised at the level of corporate power but, like corporations, investment and trade in the oil industry are also highly mobile. The long reach of the global oil economy is a consequence of the distance between the location of significant oil reserves and the location of the major markets for oil. The reserves of oil currently expected to last more than fifty years are Introduction The material presented here focuses on the politics of racial violence in Britain. The material is an audio file, originally 30 minutes in length, and examines the issues around this subject. It was recorded in 1995. This OpenLearn course provides a sample of Level 2 study in Sociology. Acknowledgements The content acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions) and is used under licence. This extract is taken from D218: Social policy: welfare, power and diversity, produced by the BBC on behalf of the Open University. © 2007 The Open University. 1 Developing reading skills John Clarke and course team member Ross Fergusson, look at developing reading skills in the context of Social Science resources, with suggestions on how to read such materials critically and effectively. The material is primarily an audio file, 11 minutes in length and recorded in 1998. Participants in the audio programme were: John Clarke Professor of Social Policy at The Open University; Ross Ferguson Social Science Learning outcomes After studying this course, you should be able to: read Social Science materials critically and effectively. Keep on learning   There are more than 800 courses on OpenLearn for you to 7 Conclusion We have explored nations, national self-determination and secession as living political ideas. Perhaps the key points to emerge from the discussion are that: the nation-state is the basic political community in the contemporary world, despite regional and global challenges; subjective approaches to defining nations, prioritising awareness of belonging to a national group, have advantages over efforts to construct objective definitions; 2.1.1 Try some yourself The size of a population of micro-organisms doubles every hour. If there are two of these creatures to start with, how many will there be after five hours? 6.7 What about alternatives to secession? We have seen that in principle there are alternatives: cultural autonomy or a form of federalism. There are alternative ways to recognise 'national' identity apart from secession. One conclusion to arise from this discussion of secession is that we are not cast adrift without any general principles or guidelines. We have also seen how the complexities of the real political world impinge upon poli 6.4 Does one community seceding grant a similar right to others? Consider the position of community C. If B secedes, it takes C with it into the new state. But does C then have the same right to secede from B? Consider the case of Quebec. Quebecois separatists have come very close to achieving the bare majority needed to achieve their goal. But if they gained the right to secede from Canada, would other groups who do not see themselves as a part of a francophone entity likewise have the right to a further independence vote for themselves? What about non-fr 5.3 ‘A positive valorisation is assigned to one's own nation, granting it specific claims ove Just how a nation is prioritised over other communities will have an important impact on how the terms of this second element are played out. A nation that sees itself in pluralistic or liberal terms for example – which may celebrate cultural diversity as part of its very sense of a collective identity – is, on the face of it, less likely to make particular demands or to institute extensive controls on the behaviour of its members. On the other hand, a nation that is imagined in terms of 11.5.4 Analogy Analogy draws on similar situations to provide ideas for invention and design. Alexander Graham Bell used the analogy of the human ear when designing telephone apparatus to receive sound. As mentioned above, his first receivers were much better than his transmitters where the analogy with the ear didn't work as well. When devising their flying machine, the Wright brothers used the analogy of soaring birds twisting their wings to restore balance. They designed the wings of their aircraft to be Acknowledgements This free course is an adapted extract from the course DD203 Power, dissent, equality, which is currently out of presentation The content acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions). This content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Sh Learning outcomes After studying this course, you should be able to: grasp the concepts of nation, nationalism and self-determination have a better understanding of the role they play in current political disputes think about the problem of how to take democratic decisions about secession relate political theory to political practice more rigorously take a more informed and active part in debates about national and international politics
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Activity 15
