The Rising Importance of Soft Skills
What skills are most important for an employee to succeed at Google? Back in 2013, the company undertook Project Oxygen to answer that question. Cathy N. Davidson described the result in the Washington Post last month ("The surprising thing Google learned about its employees — and what it means for today’s students," December 20, 2017). She writes:
- 06/06/2018
- 3
The Shifting Connections from Education to Job Skills
The Council on Foreign Relations has published The Work Ahead Machines, Skills, and U.S. Leadership in the Twenty-First Century, which is an Independent Task Force Report chaired by John Engler and Penny Pritzker, Some of the discussion goes over familiar ground: innovation is needed, technology is changing work, economic growth is important, we should redesign unemployment assistance and sick leave for the modern work force, we should do more to assist displaced workers, and so on. But I want to focus on one chapter of the report, "Education, Training, and the Labor Market," and its discussion of that how the interaction between education and job training has been shifting.
- 06/06/2018
- 2
The Not-So-Triumphant Return of the Marshmallow Test
The marshmallow test is one of those legends of social science that a lot of non-social-scientists have heard about. Relatively young children are offered a choice: they can either eat a marshmallow (or some other attractive treat) right now, or they can wait for some period of time (maybe 15-20 minutes) and then have two marshmallows. If you follow up on these children some years later, the legend goes, you find that those who were able to defer gratification early in life will have more success later in life. A satisfyingly moralistic policy recommendation follows: If we could teach young children to defer gratification, that skill might help them as they advance in life.
- 05/06/2018
- 6
Sweden Heads Toward a Cash-Free Economy
Sweden seems headed toward a cash-free economy. Here are some comments from Stefan Ingves, Governor of Sveriges Riksbank, the central bank of Sweden, in a short essay called "Going Cashless:
- 04/06/2018
- 7
Wakanda and Economics
I told my teenage son that the economics of Wakanda, the home country of the "Black Panther" in the recent movie, raised some interesting questions. He looked at me for a long moment and then explained very slowly: "Dad, it's not a documentary." Duly noted. No superhero movie is a documentary, and pretty much by definition, even asking for plausibility from a superhero movie is asking too much. But undaunted, I continue to assert that the economy of Wakanda raises some interesting questions. For some overviews, see:
- 03/06/2018
- 5
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