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Showing posts with the label long tail

Decision Making as Output and Bounded Rationality

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  The classical economics theories proceed on the assumption of rational agents. Rationality implies the economic agents undertake actions or exercise choices based on the cost-benefit analysis they undertake. The assumption further posits that there exists no information asymmetry and thus the agent is aware of all the costs and benefits associated with the choice he or she has exercised. The behavioral school contested the decision stating the decisions in practice are often irrational. Implied there is a continuous departure from rationality. Rationality in the views of the behavioral school is more an exception to the norm rather a rule. The past posts have discussed the limitations of this view by the behavioral school. Economics has often posited rationality in the context in which the choices are exercised rather than theoretical abstract view of rational action. Rational action in theory seems to be grounded in zero restraint situation yet in practice, there are numerous restra
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Reclaiming Lost History

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  In a previous post “ Saffron Swords ”, there was an attempt to review the book by the same name. The book sought to collate together the stories of those known and unknown fighters who put their lives at stake in defence of the motherland. They might have fought against the British or they might have fought against the Sultanate and their successors, but they did not shirk away from fighting to protect their independence. As the book argues, contrary to the popular perception, neither the Islamic invaders nor the Europeans had an easy time in managing India. They were faced with resistance at every nook and corner and in many instances, the victory they obtained was perhaps pyrrhic. Interestingly, barring the Mughals, there was hardly an Islamic dynasty that had a long uninterrupted rule either in Delhi or in other regions. Maybe the Bahamans would come close but they never had uncontested supremacy with them being constantly challenged and often outpowered by the Vijayanagara rulers
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Jargon in the Digital Economy-I

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  The world is growing increasingly digital. Some twenty five years ago, the dotcom boom flourished on a premise that buyers would not want to go shopping and instead prefer to be delivered of their needs in the comforts of their home. Not surprisingly, the idea seem to have failed then. Numerous dotcom firms simply collapsed. Hardly one or two survived and it was they who went on to redefine the industry. Today, these ideas hardly look outlandish. There is growing traction among the buyers who want to order online from groceries to vegetables to fruits to toiletries to what not. In the earlier days, many writers and scholars viewed internet as an extension of the distribution medium. To them, the distribution, instead of happening in physical stores would happen in virtual stores. Yet with passage of time, the notions of internet and the accompanying business models have significantly expanded. As the internet based business models morph into something radically new, it would be perti
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Externalities of Openness and Sharing

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Noted authors Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams in their book Macrowikinomics describe current system as the driven through networks leading them to describe it economy resting on networked intelligence. To them, collaboration, openness, sharing, integrity and interdependence emerge key success determinants in the networked information economy.     The emergent network intelligence was itself a product of rapid diffusion of internet downstream at a pace that surprised even its most exuberant adherents. Rather than irrational exuberance, the diffusion of internet seems to be an outcome of rational exuberance. Long deprived of information access, analysis and distribution thanks to the constraint of brick and mortar economy, internet threw open the floodgates. The principles illustrated above without doubt have defined a new stream of thinking and practice. Dynamic environmental indicators have changed the way we perceive environmental impact of our socio-economic activity. Organ
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