I described a 1999 result by Koutsoupias and Papadimitriou, regarding multi-agent systems. They studied systems in which non-cooperative agents share a common resource and proposed the ratio between the worst possible Nash equilibrium and the social optimum as a measure of the effectiveness of the system. This ratio has become known as the "Price of Anarchy," as it measures how far from optimal such non-cooperative systems can be. They showed that the price of anarchy could be arbitrarily high, depending on the complexity of the system. The Price-of-Anarchy concept has later been extended to other types of equilibria--for example, Pareto-Optimal Equilibria.b

In 1982, Time magazine skipped its annual tradition of naming a "Man of the Year" to instead crown the personal computer as the "Machine of the Year." The Apple II had been released only a half-decade earlier, and the subsequent introduction of the VisiCalc spreadsheet software in 1979 seemingly all at once convinced the managerial class about the business potential of computers. Soon, IBM released its own PC, which went on to become both widely copied and wildly popular. The journalist who wrote the Time feature noted in his article that he had typed his contribution on a typewriter. By the next year, their newsroom switched to word processors.

Thanks to the first round of digital disruption, e-commerce and the platform economy have become a way of life all over the world. Order on Amazon Prime with a single click and get free shipping. Compare insurance policies on The Zebra or places to stay on Booking.com. Whether it's saving gas and time by skipping the mad dash around town for supplies or finding the best deal on a hotel, the first wave of digital disruption brought consumers personalized offers, savings, and convenience beaucoup. For the companies who moved into the e-commerce and platform economy early on during this first wave, this revolution captured significant value as they monetized direct access to their customers and served as third-party aggregators in a wealth of ecosystems.

To become wealthier, a country needs strong growth in productivity--the output of goods or services from given inputs of labor and capital. For most people, in theory at least, higher productivity means the expectation of rising wages and abundant job opportunities. Productivity growth in most of the world's rich countries has been dismal since around 2004. Especially vexing is the sluggish pace of what economists call total factor productivity--the part that accounts for the contributions of innovation and technology. In a time of Facebook, smartphones, self-driving cars, and computers that can beat a person at just about any board game, how can the key economic measure of technological progress be so pathetic?

The vast vacant lot along the Monongahela River has been a scar from Pittsburgh's industrial past for decades. It was once the site of the Jones and Laughlin steelworks, one of the largest such facilities in the city back when steel was the dominant industry there. Most of the massive structures are long gone, leaving behind empty fields pocked with occasional remnants of steelmaking and a few odd buildings. Next to the sprawling site is one of Pittsburgh's poorer neighborhoods, Hazelwood, where a house can go for less than $50,000. As with many of the towns that stretch south along the river toward West Virginia, like McKeesport and Duquesne, the economic reasons for its existence--steel and coal--are a fading memory. These days the old steel site, called Hazelwood Green by its developers, is coming back to life.

In a major new research report, The Technology-Augmented Employee, I take on a problem that's vexing CIOs and government leaders alike. In aggregate, US companies face a productivity paradox: Despite billions of dollars invested in technology, growth in employee productivity has slowed since 2004. Even though global technology spending will for the first time pass $3 trillion globally in 2018, this productivity paradox should concern CIOs and other decision-makers: For all these investments, shouldn't we expect a return in the form of more effective employees? As it turns out, not all those technology investments make their way down to employees -- at least not effectively. While employees commonly have devices -- 6 out of 10 information workers have a PC, and the same proportion have a smartphone -- too few of them have adequate apps beyond just the basics: Forrester's Business Technographics data shows that fewer than 1 in 10 have job-specific applications they use daily.

In the midst of a tech boom, productivity growth is slowing. Is the global economy simply gathering strength, or is innovation becoming elusive? In his seminal 2016 book, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Robert Gordon of Northwestern University made a provocative claim--compared to the five waves of technological shifts of the past (electricity, urban sanitation, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, the internal combustion engine, and modern communication), the economic impact from ongoing IT developments is downright ordinary. Gordon's point is that the way we used to work and live changed fundamentally from the 1870s to the 1940s, as clean water, indoor plumbing, electricity and mechanised transportation became widely available. With these changes, we became healthier, more secure.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has cut the number of workers on its turbocharger production lines west of Tokyo by more than 80 percent, as manufacturers from carmakers to electronics producers push further into automation. Such advances explain why Japan's factory productivity growth ranked highest among Group of Seven nations over the two decades to 2014. Yet the nation's overall productivity ranks worst in the G-7, dragged down by a lack of progress in the services sector, where white-collar work culture demands long hours rather than efficiency. Higher productivity is critical to sustaining economic growth and living standards as Japan's population shrinks. One forecast predicts the current labor force of about 77 million could decline by more than 40 percent by 2065.