Summary Examples

Type: General

Take a random selection of scientists, engineers, investors and the general public and ask them what nanotechnology is and you will receive a range of replies as broad as nanotechnology itself. The exact size of the atoms is less important than communicating the fact that nanotechnology is dealing with the smallest parts of matter that we can manipulate. While there is a commonly held belief that nanotechnology is a futuristic science with applications 25 years in the future and beyond, nanotechnology is anything but science fiction. What is new about nanotechnology is our ability to not only see, and manipulate matter on the nanoscale, but our understanding of atomic scale interactions. Nanotechnology, like any other branch of science, is primarily concerned with understanding how nature works.

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Type: Econimics

The European Economic Community (EEC), the most prominent example of a free trade area, actually is what economists call a customs union. By 1967 the institutions of the European Economic Community (or Common Market) became common to all three communities. As Jacob Viner pointed out in a classic analysis of trade, whether the participating countries benefit from their customs union depends on whether it creates additional trade or simply diverts trade away from the rest of the world. But if EC members now buy expensive German barley rather than cheap American wheat because of high external tariffs or low quotas, trade is diverted and European consumers are left worse off. The CAP and the customs union show the two faces of the European Community, one that enhances efficiency by promoting competition and specialization, and one that sacrifices economic efficiency to help farmers.

Type: Politics

The European Economic Community (EEC), the most prominent example of a free trade area, actually is what economists call a customs union. The CAP and the customs union show the two faces of the European Community, one that enhances efficiency by promoting competition and specialization, and one that sacrifices economic efficiency to help farmers. The ECB will assume control of the monetary policies of the participating countries. Forcing all European countries to run the same monetary policy and to maintain the same interest rates will deprive Europe's national governments of a policy tool traditionally used to address their own macroeconomic problems. As the experience reminds us, a monetary policy common to all twelve EC countries will be useful for moderating only those business cycle fluctuations that are common to the twelve countries.

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