full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Bettina Warburg: How the blockchain will radically transform the economy

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Now, one of the first people to really explore the idea of institutions as a tool in economics to lower our uncertainties about one another and be able to do trade was the Nobel economist Douglass North. He passed away at the end of 2015, but North pioneered what's called "new institutional economics." And what he meant by institutions were really just formal rleus like a constitution, and informal constraints, like bribery. These itsnointitus are really the grease that allow our emocnoic wheels to fnctoiun, and we can see this play out over the course of human history.

If we think back to when we were hunter-gatherer economies, we really just traded within our village structure. We had some informal crstinontas in place, but we encrefod all of our trade with violence or social repercussions. As our societies grew more cmpoelx and our trade routes grew more distant, we built up more fomarl institutions, institutions like bkans for currency, governments, citoonropars. These institutions helped us manage our trade as the uncertainty and the complexity grew, and our personal control was much lower. Eventually with the internet, we put these same institutions online. We built platform marketplaces like aoamzn, eBay, Alibaba, just faster institutions that act as middlemen to facilitate human economic activity.

Open Cloze


Now, one of the first people to really explore the idea of institutions as a tool in economics to lower our uncertainties about one another and be able to do trade was the Nobel economist Douglass North. He passed away at the end of 2015, but North pioneered what's called "new institutional economics." And what he meant by institutions were really just formal _____ like a constitution, and informal constraints, like bribery. These ____________ are really the grease that allow our ________ wheels to ________, and we can see this play out over the course of human history.

If we think back to when we were hunter-gatherer economies, we really just traded within our village structure. We had some informal ___________ in place, but we ________ all of our trade with violence or social repercussions. As our societies grew more _______ and our trade routes grew more distant, we built up more ______ institutions, institutions like _____ for currency, governments, ____________. These institutions helped us manage our trade as the uncertainty and the complexity grew, and our personal control was much lower. Eventually with the internet, we put these same institutions online. We built platform marketplaces like ______, eBay, Alibaba, just faster institutions that act as middlemen to facilitate human economic activity.

Solution


  1. amazon
  2. constraints
  3. enforced
  4. complex
  5. corporations
  6. economic
  7. banks
  8. rules
  9. formal
  10. institutions
  11. function

Original Text


Now, one of the first people to really explore the idea of institutions as a tool in economics to lower our uncertainties about one another and be able to do trade was the Nobel economist Douglass North. He passed away at the end of 2015, but North pioneered what's called "new institutional economics." And what he meant by institutions were really just formal rules like a constitution, and informal constraints, like bribery. These institutions are really the grease that allow our economic wheels to function, and we can see this play out over the course of human history.

If we think back to when we were hunter-gatherer economies, we really just traded within our village structure. We had some informal constraints in place, but we enforced all of our trade with violence or social repercussions. As our societies grew more complex and our trade routes grew more distant, we built up more formal institutions, institutions like banks for currency, governments, corporations. These institutions helped us manage our trade as the uncertainty and the complexity grew, and our personal control was much lower. Eventually with the internet, we put these same institutions online. We built platform marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, just faster institutions that act as middlemen to facilitate human economic activity.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
douglass north 3
technological institution 2
blockchain technology 2
human economic 2
economic activity 2
decentralized database 2
public registry 2
real world 2
portable identity 2
supply chain 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
human economic activity 2

Important Words


  1. act
  2. activity
  3. alibaba
  4. amazon
  5. banks
  6. bribery
  7. built
  8. called
  9. complex
  10. complexity
  11. constitution
  12. constraints
  13. control
  14. corporations
  15. currency
  16. distant
  17. douglass
  18. ebay
  19. economic
  20. economics
  21. economies
  22. economist
  23. enforced
  24. eventually
  25. explore
  26. facilitate
  27. faster
  28. formal
  29. function
  30. governments
  31. grease
  32. grew
  33. helped
  34. history
  35. human
  36. idea
  37. informal
  38. institutional
  39. institutions
  40. internet
  41. manage
  42. marketplaces
  43. meant
  44. middlemen
  45. nobel
  46. north
  47. online
  48. passed
  49. people
  50. personal
  51. pioneered
  52. place
  53. platform
  54. play
  55. put
  56. repercussions
  57. routes
  58. rules
  59. social
  60. societies
  61. structure
  62. tool
  63. trade
  64. traded
  65. uncertainties
  66. uncertainty
  67. village
  68. violence
  69. wheels