Anne Emerson-Photographer,
Wordsmith, and Twin
The diagram at left is Wheat prices in England, 1264 to 1996, measured in constant 1996 pounds per tonne. That is, it follows the price of wheat in England for several centuries, adjusted for inflation. It is from the book "Forecasting Methods and Applications" (Third Edition) by Makridakis, Wheelwright, and Hyndman, copyright 1998 by John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
I found a copy of this diagram on "Our World in Data" (open source material), a few years ago, but even if I hadn't, the book states that diagrams in it are freely available. I was not able to find the diagram on "Our World in Data" when I looked again more recently.
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It is Figure 9-6, on page 459. On the y axis is Price: pounds per tonne. On the x axis is the date, from 1264 C.E. to 1996 C.E. The trend line starts downward right around the Industrial Revolution. And, as mentioned, this is in England, and we can be more precise than that. The "repeal of the corn laws" occurred in England in 1842. "Corn" means "wheat" in England.
Annie's Model in Brief
Annie says her main policy recommendation - increase the required reserve ratio at banks, either all or some, with transparency - will bring prices down.
It will also bring wages down, but a woman I met in the grocery store had no problem with that - it's what your paycheck will buy, not what it's monetary value is!
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And this is what the Fed and other policy-makers need to debate - how will declining prices and wages affect the system? Annie says that this policy will even up inequities around the world. Wouldn't that be nice?
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Summary: Annie calls the two sectors in her model “money-magnet” industries, and “resource-losing” industries. [That's industries, not countries.] They each benefit more, or less, from global economic policies, because they each face a different financial environment. We might wish to treat them differently - different market-based policies might be appropriate for each - just as different human beings, facing different environments, benefit differently from them.
Annie says that global economic policies have benefited money-magnet industries at the expense of resource-losing industries, all over the world, and the challenge has reached crisis point.
It is very hard to believe that this occurred deliberately, because it may be found all over the world. Annie thinks Governments have been at loggerheads because they don't know what to do, not because they intend to be unkind. We need to talk over how it happened (is Annie correct?) and what to do about it, going forward.
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Annie is in good company - Swedish Nobel laureate Gunnar Myrdal said the same thing in different language! But we are wiser now and it's time to revisit what earlier analysts thought.
Systemic Bias -
an Economist's Perspective
The essays in the next section are for general readers. It will help if you have taken economics for business, but it is not required.
A "best and final" summary for busy people may be found under the heading "Annie's Model" at left.
The two working papers above were submitted to an academic journal, on or around March 2025. Annie is still awaiting a decision regarding publication. These are technical articles, for professional economists, not for the general public. The second one was completed in haste and contains a few mistakes. However, Annie thinks the articles merit serious discussion as they are.
Annie's general knowledge, economic training, and research data suggested to her, many years ago, that the global economy is a "closed system." You would have to be trained as a scientist or mathematician in order to know what that means, technically.
But the bottom line is that she used this knowledge to build an economic model that explains why some of the phenomena of the global economy do not behave as mainstream economists have been taught.
Economic theory is on the essays page. Data are in the section below and also on the Poems page, in the "People Poems" section. A link below - Annie's model for business students - will take you to something a little less technical than the academic papers. Economic background information, in particular a brief description of modern banking systems, is on the Essays page. The most important essays are here, at the series of links on a multi-colored background, below the introductory remarks.
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Annie has written two Working Papers, or precursors to academic publication, which may be found at the links above. These papers are not for general readers, although you are welcome to take a peek at them.
Links to Annie's Essays - How we got here and why it matters
The figure above shows that the share of population living in urban areas began to increase rapidly, around the time of the Industrial Revolution (early to mid-1800s), across the globe. Four countries listed by name are Japan, United States, China, and India. From the line labeled "World", you can see that the phenomenon is global.
The map at left represents migration streams within Algeria between 1966 and 1977. Re-printed with permission, from Annie's doctoral dissertation (degree awarded in1992).
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If anyone thinks urbanization results mostly from rural-urban migration, they might want to think again, as they look at the figure. Clearly, there were many migration streams to and from large coastal cities.
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This also confounds the idea that inter-regional wage-differentials account for city growth. (Are city-wages higher in Alger, or in Oran?) And why are many people moving between Alger and oil and gas fields in the Sahara Desert (regions 7 and 30), but not so many from other regions?
While the figure above is part of Annie's scholarly work on Migration in Algeria, Annie has also traveled to North Africa (Egypt, Tunisia, and the Sudan). What she experienced in those countries has influenced her worldview. For a more poetic take on these matters, please see the "Poems" page. Link below.
Annie's perspective on the path of growth and change is described in words and pictures below the poem, "Leaving the Land," on Annie's "poems" page. link at left. It seemed appropriate to put it there, with Annie's worldview, rather than mixed up with conventional economics. Annie's worldview also includes the musings on the "Happiness" page (link also at left). On that page, you may find many books and movies to entertain and educate you, if you wish.
Annie's perspective on the path of growth and change is described in words and pictures below the poem, "Leaving the Land," on the Poems page. It seemed appropriate to put some aspects of Annie's migration analysis on the "Poems" page, with Annie's worldview.
Annie believes that the ideas in which we believe change over time, which then brings about change in the culture, with feedback loops in belief systems as well as in other aspects of society, such as in the systems of infrastructure, government, education, and book-learning. Since Annie is an economist, she has made a more formal model of how the flow of money around an economic system (global, national, regional, and local) enables these types of feedback loops.
Urbanization - city growth and expansion, at the expense of rural integrity - is one example among many.
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Annie believes that we can reverse much of what has happened in government and finance, by reducing prices and wages across a whole economic system, up to and including the whole world.
If governments cannot do it, large or small commercial banks may be able to do it on their own. It would work best, if the banks are transparent about their financial policies and investment portfolios. The general public can then decide in which banks they choose to invest.
When Annie had developed her written summary of the path of growth and change, based on her data, she was granted an academic qualification (well, it was a Ph.D. but we plebs don't talk about that, in case people think we are snobs) based on the empirical work. She was told that she would need to model her process (in order to be taken seriously, she assumes), but advised to stop at the point she had already reached - a large and thorough empirical investigation of census data on migration in Algeria.
Many years later, she was motivated to do as she had been told, to "model the process." The results were amazing! She had debunked Adam Smith's invisible hand, as presented in economics textbooks. Adam Smith has been called, by some, the Father of Modern Economics. But the main reason he was already famous was for his treatise on Ethics, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments." He was not, himself, an economist (economics as an academic discipline hadn't been invented then). He was a moral philosopher, in the tradition of Emerson and the Greeks. Fortunately, Annie decided to read some Smith before she presumed to critique the man himself! Smith agreed with Annie! Almost the whole world, it appears, prefers to trust economics textbooks rather than find out what Smith actually said. Perhaps he has been superseded; perhaps not. He was writing during a period of tremendous economic change. We know more now, but not enough to ignore him altogether. Please see links in the next section below. Another thinker, with some ideas in common with Smith is Gunnar Myrdal. He was writing in the latter half of the last century.
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Annie has also recently revisited memories of a book she studied in college many years ago. It is "The Muqaddimah," a book of social commentary about Middle Eastern dynasties. This book is considered by many to be the finest treatise on social structures and history ever written. It has much in common with Adam Smith's work, although it references a completely different time and place. For today we might consider Ibn Khaldun's (the author's) perspective on what we might call group-think, along with the growth and development of dynasties, containing in their natural paths the seeds of their own destruction.
Annie says we are, in 2025, again at the kind of crossroads predicted by authors such as Ibn Khaldun, Smith, Myrdal, and the people who recorded our world's great religious texts. The book of Revelation, in the Christian Bible, describes, not the "end times," but a revelation, just as its title suggests. It was written about two centuries ago, in another place and time, and much of it is no longer easily understandable. It might help us, if a wise religious scholar were to help explain what it says. Annie heard some interpretation of the book of Revelation, at Williamsburg Fellowship Church, last year. It is a highly symbolic reference to the collapse and rebirth of a corrupt society.
Similarly, other texts from ancient worlds have suffered in translation and over time, rather like a game of telephone, so that we need interpreters to tell us what they mean. Different cultures rely on different texts and different types of interpreters. I expect each of us can find a spiritual truth in the teachings of our own wise leaders. The only caution I would offer is that, if you don't like what your leader is asking you to do, or what he/she is telling you the scriptures say - ask another leader; and another; and another, until you find something that feels right to you. Annie
Annie's perspective on the path of growth and change is described in words and pictures below the poem, "Leaving the Land," on Annie's "Poems" page. It seemed appropriate to put some aspects of Annie's migration analysis there, alongside Annie's worldview.
Annie believes that the ideas in which we believe change over time, which then brings about change in the culture, with feedback loops in belief systems as well as in other aspects of society, such as in the systems of infrastructure, government, education, the arts, and book-learning.
Since Annie is an economist, she has made a more formal model of how the flow of money around an economic system (global, national, regional, and local) enables these types of feedback loops. Urbanization - city growth and expansion, at the expense of rural integrity - is an example.
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For Annie's model in language accessible to the general reader who finds economics boring, please see the "Poems" page of this website, at the first link below.
For more general economics essays, inspired by questions from friends and neighbors during the pandemic, please click the third link below.
Numerical Examples demonstrate how Annie's model explores the path of growth and change. Background information for the examples is on the Essays page, link HERE
These scans of pages 67 to 72 of Annie's doctoral dissertation (degree awarded in 1992) at the University of Maryland, College Park, describe Annie's "process." A professor at the University suggested that the Process needed to be modeled in order for it to be taken seriously. Annie ran into a few distractions along the way (family, home, work, illness, life) and she humbly apologizes that the system is not set up so that a mother with children can get the kind of job that would have produced "Annie's Model" sooner.
