Jascha Grübel

Month: September 2016

  • QPAM: Introduction

    Quantitative Policy Analysis and Modelling (QPAM) concerns itself with the goals that we set ourselves for society and how government can obtain these goals. The “Grüne Wirtschaft” initiative currently up for a referendum in Switzerland can be said to have the goal of a sustainable economy by 2050. If accepted it mandates to assess the…

  • Principles of Economics: Efficient Competitive Markets

    The goal of the lesson is to understand how markets work. We need a benchmark to analyse a market and it will be perfect competition. It is an idealised world where nobody has sufficient market power to influence the market and therefore good prices are exogenous. Also producers are altruistic inasmuch they do not consider…

  • Principles of Economics: Introduction

    The course’s objective is to introduce the study of economics, and the economic way of thinking about societal problems. It should provide basic understanding of a market economy and the potentials and limitations of economic policies. Economics is the study of how society manages scares resources to use them in the most efficient way. The…

  • BSTP – Lecture 1: History of Technology and Society I

    Bridging Science, Technology and Policy will today cover the history of technology and society and how they interact. The first part covers the technical innovations up to the industrial revolution. Science is how the environment around human functions. It is not human-centric. Technology on the other hand is made by humans to improve human live.…

  • Cornerstone Course – Day 5: Digital Society – Big Data

    Digital Society is a very elastic phrase. We will explore three examples: Network Neutrality Privacy and Surveillance Big Data All are focused on how technology changes society. It is a contested topic on whether the impact is positive or negative. Issues are at the intersection of information and communications technologies and society, law, and public…

  • Cornerstone Course – Day 5: Digital Society – Privacy and Surveillance

    Digital Society is a very elastic phrase. We will explore three examples: Network Neutrality Privacy and Surveillance Big Data All are focused on how technology changes society. It is a contested topic on whether the impact is positive or negative. Issues are at the intersection of information and communications technologies and society, law, and public…

  • Cornerstone Course – Day 5: Digital Society – Network Neutrality

    Digital Society is a very elastic phrase. We will explore three examples: Network Neutrality Privacy and Surveillance Big Data All are focused on how technology changes society. It is a contested topic on whether the impact is positive or negative. Issues are at the intersection of information and communications technologies and society, law, and public…

  • Sugar and Fat Policy in the US

    A recent article in the New York Times illustrated the difficulties of creating policies. In particular, the article came to the conclusion, that the policy push against fatty food – a standard policy across the world – has been orchestrated by the the sugar industry. The interesting part is, that they did not lie about…

  • Geels’ Technological Transitions and System Innovations

    Technological transitions and system innovations: A Co-Evolutionary and Socio-Technical Analysis(Geels, 2004)is a mandatory reading of the core course Bridging Science, Technology and policy. The book analyses how technological changes transform societal functions such as transport, communication, housing and energy supply. According to Geels social and technological aspects are always intertwined and constitute each other. The…

  • Cornerstone Course – Day 4: Omitted

    For personal reasons I did not join the 4th day of the cornerstone course. Some notes may be added at a later point in time.