https://voxeu.org/article/trade-effects-3d-printing … > really fascinating economics paper. IDDK that the hearing aid industry basically completely switched to 3D printing processes within less than 18 months!
-
Show this thread
-
however, this didn't lead to a deglobalization of production - instead international trade in them increased faster than either the world average, or similar products
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likesShow this thread -
dynamic effects - quick prototyping, mass customization, a simpler tool chain - tended to dominate. Trade increased because low-income countries could afford to import hearing aids. Which is...good?
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likesShow this thread -
although they didn't, however, start local production. Which might have been bad, but the counterfactual is probably just that they went on asking people to speak up
1 reply 0 retweets 1 likeShow this thread -
the paper suggests, tantalizingly, that this effect might be reversed for physically bigger and heavier products. the instrumental variable is *international* trade, which does make me wonder if there was localization *within* nations
1 reply 0 retweets 1 likeShow this thread -
there's an interesting tradeoff between technology that increases productivity for a specific defined process, and technology that facilitates changing processes. this is the classic GM vs Toyota production thing, but it comes up all over the place
1 reply 0 retweets 3 likesShow this thread -
in computing, it's often been a good call to pick general purpose hardware and open source software even if there's a performance cost, because the dynamic benefits of quicker development are worth it.
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likesShow this thread -
my colleagues at Light Reading argue here that Nokia took the "OK performance, quick development" leg of this tradeoff with their 5G base stations and it was a mistake:https://www.lightreading.com/mobile/5g/nokias-5g-chip-choice-leaves-it-exposed/d/d-id/755184 …
2 replies 0 retweets 0 likesShow this thread
otoh, across the industry people are ripping out highly optimized ASIC-based routers and replacing them with generic switches and x86 machines running the various Linux Foundation network virtualization solutions
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.