In this paper I argue that the manufacturing sector still has an important role to play in Africa's development. Despite failing to industrialize in the past, there may be a new window of opportunity. This is due to the convergence of what has been called "brilliant" new technologies associated...

This paper shows that African economies have generally not de-industrialized, that manufacturing growth is very possible, and moreover that the contribution of manufacturing in Africa has been underestimated. As far as the future is concerned, African countries will in differing degrees...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a potentially powerful tool in the fight against the COVID- 19 pandemic. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, there has been a scramble to use AI. This article provides an early, and necessarily selective review, discussing the contribution of AI to the fight...

After a number of AI-winters, AI is back with a boom. There are concerns that it will disrupt society. The immediate concern is whether labor can win a 'race against the robots' and the longer-term concern is whether an artificial general intelligence (super-intelligence) can be controlled. This...

This paper contributes to the economics of AI by exploring three topics neglected by economists: (i) the notion of a Singularity (and Singleton), (ii) the existential risks that AI may pose to humanity, including that from an extraterrestrial AI in a Dark Forest universe; and (iii) the relevance...

The possibility that artificial extraterrestrial intelligence poses an existential threat to humanity is neglected. It is also the case in economics, where both AI existential risks and the potential long-term consequences of an AGI are neglected. This paper presents a thought experiment to...

To date there has been few systematic and comparative empirical analyses of the nature of economic development in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS). We contribute to addressing this gap by exploring the patterns of structural change between 1980 and 2010, focusing on the...

In "The Race between Man and Machine: Implications of Technology for Growth, Factor Shares, and Employment," Acemoglu and Restrepo (2018b) combine the task-based model of the labor market with an endogenous growth model to model the economic consequences of artificial intelligence (AI). This...

In this paper, we describe the historical co-evolution of innovation and economic growth in Germany since 1871. The country's rise as an industrial power in the late 19th century, through its innovation and entrepreneurial performance, is contrasted with the post-World War II period. This latter...

The economic impact of Articial Intelligence (AI) is studied using a (semi) endogenous growth model with two novel features. First, the task approach from labor economics is reformulated and integrated into a growth model. Second, the standard representative household assumption is rejected, so...