Algorithms and the Changing Frontier

Hezekiah Agwara, Philip Auerswald and Brian Higginbotham

No 20039, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We first summarize the dominant interpretations of the "frontier" in the United States and predecessor colonies over the past 400 years: agricultural (1610s-1880s), industrial (1890s-1930s), scientific (1940s- 1980s), and algorithmic (1990s-present). We describe the difference between the algorithmic frontier and the scientific frontier. We then propose that the recent phenomenon referred to as "globalization" is actually better understood as the progression of the algorithmic frontier, as enabled by standards that in turn have facilitated the interoperability of firm-level production algorithms. We conclude by describing implications of the advance of the algorithmic frontier for scientific discovery and technological innovation.

JEL-codes: D30 F60 L15 O31 O32 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
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Published as Algorithms and the Changing Frontier , Hezekiah Agwara, Philip Auerswald, Brian Higginbotham. in The Changing Frontier: Rethinking Science and Innovation Policy , Jaffe and Jones. 2015

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