The art of pulling the right lever

cognitive science, collective intelligence, education, social sciences 13 Minutes

I dig into the idea of revising my manuscript ‘Climbing the right hill – an evolutionary approach to the European market of electricity’, in order to resubmit it to the journal Applied Energy , by somehow fusing it with two other, unpublished pieces of my writing, namely: ‘Behavioural absorption of Black Swans: simulation with an artificial neural network’, and ‘The labour-oriented, collective intelligence of ours: Penn Tables 9.1 seen through the eyes of a neural network’.

I am focusing on one particular aspect of that revision by recombination, namely on comparing the empirical datasets which I used for each research in question. This is an empiricist approach to scientific writing: I assume that points of overlapping, as well as possible synergies, are based, at the end of the day, on overlapping and synergies between the respective empirical bases of my different papers.

 In ‘Climbing the right hill […]’, my basic dataset consisted in m = 300 ‘country-year’ observations, in the timeframe from 2008 through 2017, and covering the following countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden, United Kingdom, Norway, and Turkey. The scope of variables covered is essentially that of Penn Tables 9.1, plus some variables from other sources, pertinent to the market of electricity, to the energy sector in general, and to technological change, namely:

>> The price fork, in € between the retail price of electricity, paid by households and really small institutional entities, on the one hand, and the prices paid by big institutional consumers

>> The capital value of that price fork, in € mln, thus the difference in prices multiplied by the quantity of electricity consumed

>> Total consumption of energy in the country (thousands of tonnes of oil equivalent)

>> The percentage share of electricity in the total consumption of energy

>> The percentage share of renewable sources in the total output of electricity

>> The number of resident patent applications per country per year

>> The coefficient of fixed assets per 1 resident patent application

>> The coefficient of resident patent applications per 1 million people

The full set, in Excel format, is accessible via the following link: https://discoversocialsciences.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Database-300-prices-of-electricity-in-context.xlsx . I also used a recombination of that database, made of m = 3000 randomly stacked records from the m = 300 set, just in order to check the influence of order in ‘country-year’ observations upon the results I obtained

In the two other manuscripts, namely in ‘The behavioural absorption of Black Swans […]’ and in ‘The labour-oriented, collective intelligence of ours […]’, I used one and the same empirical database, made of m = 3006 ‘country-year’ records, all selected from Penn Tables 9.1 , with the criteria of selection being the fullness of information. In other words, I kicked out of Penn Tables 9.1. all the rows with empty cells, and what remains is the m = 3006 set.

As I attempt to make some sort of cross analysis between my results from those three papers, one crossing is obvious. Variables pertinent to the market of labour, i.e. the average number of hours worked per person per year (AVH), the percentage of labour compensation in the gross national income (LABSH), and the indicator of human capital (HC), informative about the average length of educational path in the professionally active people, seem to play a special role as collectively pursued outcomes. The special role of those three – AVH, LABSH, and HC – seems to be impervious to, respectively, the presence or the absence of the variables I added from other sources in ‘Climbing the right hill […]’. It also seems impervious to the geographical scope and the temporal window of observation.

The most interesting direction for a further exploration seems to be in the crossing of ‘Black Swans […]’ with ‘Climbing the right hill […]. I take the structure from ‘Black Swans […]’ – namely the model where the optimization of an empirical variable impacts a range of social roles – and I put in that model the dataset from  ‘Climbing the right hill […]’. I observe the patterns of learning occurring in the perceptron, as I take different empirical variables.

Variables which are strong collective orientations – AVH, LABSH, and HC – display a special pattern of learning, different from other variables. Their local residual error (i.e. the arithmetical difference between the value of neural activation function and the local empirical value at hand), swings in a wide amplitude, yet in a predictable cycle. It is a pattern of learning in the lines of ‘we make a lot of mistakes, then we minimize them, and then we repeat: a lot of mistakes followed by a period of accuracy’. Other variables, run through the same model, display something different: a general tendency to minimal error, with occasional, pretty random bumps. Not much error, and not much of a visible cycle in learning.

The national societies which I study, seem to orient themselves on outcomes which associate with strong and predictably cyclical amplitude of error, this with abundant learning in a predictable cycle. There is one more thing. When optimizing variables relative to the market of labour – AVH, LABSH, and HC – the model from ‘Black Swans […]’ shows relatively the highest resilience in the incumbent social roles, i.e. those in place before social disruption starts.

Good. Something takes shape. I am reframing the method and the material I want to introduce in the revised version of ‘Climbing the right hill […]’, for the journal Applied Energy, and I add some results and provisional conclusions.

When I take the empirical material from Penn Tables 9.1, thus when I observe the otherwise bloody chaotic thing called ‘society’ through the lens of quantitative variables pertinent to the broadly spoken real of macroeconomics, that material shows some repetitive, robust properties. When I run in through a learning procedure, expressed in the form of a simple neural network, the learning centred on optimizing variables pertinent to the labour market (AVH, LABSH, HC), as well as on the index of prices in export (PL_X), – yields artificial datasets more similar to the original one, in terms of Euclidean similarity, than any other such artificial dataset, optimizing other variables. That phenomenological hierarchy seems to be robust both to the modifications of scope, and those of spatial-temporal range. When I add variables pertinent to technological change and to the market of electricity, they obediently take their place in the rank, and don’t step forward. When I extend the geographical scope of observation from Europe to the whole world, and when I extend the window of observation from the initial {2008 ÷ 2017} to the longer {1954 ÷ 2017}, the same still holds.

As I try to explain why is it so, and I try to find an empirical explanation, I make another neural network, where each empirical variable from the original dataset is the optimized output, and optimization takes place by experimenting with a vector of probabilities assigned to a set of social roles, and a random factor of disturbance. The pattern of learning is observed as the distribution of residual errors over the entire experimental sequence of phenomenal instances. In that different perspective, the same variables which seem to be privileged collective outcomes – PL_X, AVH, LABSH, and HC – display a specific pattern of learning: they swing broadly in their error, and yet they swing in a predictable cycle. When my experimental neural network learns on other variables, the pattern is different, with the curve of error being much calmer, less bumpy, and yet much less cyclical.

I return to my method and to my theoretical assumptions. I recapitulate. I start by assuming that social reality is essentially chaotic and unobservable directly, yet I can make epistemological approximations of that thing and see how they work. In this specific piece of research, I make two such types of approximation, based on different assumptions. On the one hand, I assume that quantitative, commonly measured, socio-economic variables, such as those in Penn Tables 9.1 are partial expressions of change in that otherwise chaotic social reality, and we collect those values because they represent change in the collective outcomes which we value. On the other hand, I assume that social reality can be represented as a collection of social roles, in two distinct categories: the already existing, active social roles, accompanied by temporarily dormant, ready-to-be triggered roles. Those social roles are observable as the relative frequency of occurrence, thus as the probability that any given individual endorses them.

I further assume that human societies are collectively intelligent structures, which, in turn, means that we collectively learn by experimenting with many alternative versions of ourselves. By the way, I have been wondering whether this is a hypothesis or an assumption, and I settled for assumption, because I do not really bring any direct proof thereof, and yet I make the claim. Anyway, with the assumption of collective intelligence, I can simulate two mutually correlated processes of learning through experimentation. On the one hand, among all the collective outcomes represented with quantitative socio-economic variables, we learn hierarchically, i.e. we optimize some of those outcomes in the first place, whilst treating the other ones as instrumental to that chief goal. On the other hand, we optimize each of those outcomes, represented with quantitative variables, by experimenting with the relative prevalence (i.e. probability of endorsement) in distinct social roles.

That general theoretical perspective is the foundation which I use to both make an empirical method of research, and to substantiate the claim that public policies and business strategies which stimulate technological race with clear prime for winners and clear penalty for losers are likely to bring better results, especially on the long run, than policies and strategies aiming at erasing local idiosyncrasies and at creating uniformly distributed outcomes. My point is that the latter, i.e. policies oriented on nullifying local idiosyncrasies, lead either to the absence of idiosyncrasies, and, consequently, to the absence of different versions in ourselves to experiment with and learn, or they simply prove inefficient, as they try to move the wrong lever in the machine.

Now, looking through another door inside my head, I am presenting below the structure of semestral projects I assign to my students, in the Summer semester 2021, in two different, and yet somehow concurrent courses: International Trade Policy in the major International Relations, and International Management in the major Management. You will see how I teach, and how I get a bit obsessive about digging into the same ideas, over and over again.

The complex project to graduate the International Management course, Summer semester 2021

Our common goal: develop your understanding of the transition from the domestically based business structure to an international one.

Your goal: prepare a developed, well-informed business plan, for the development of a business, from the level of one national market, to the international level. That business plan is your semestral project, which you graduate the course of International Management with.

You can see this course as an opportunity to put together and utilize the partial learning you have from all the individual subject courses you have had so far.

Your deadline is June 25th, 2021. 

Definition – international scale of a business means that it becomes an economically significant choice to branch the operations into or move them completely to foreign markets. In other words, the essential difference between domestic management and international management – at least the difference we will focus on in this course – is that in domestic management the initial place of incorporation determines the strategy, whilst in international management the geographical location of operations and incorporation(s) is determined by strategic choices. 

You work with a business concept of your own, or you take one of the pre-prepared business plans available at the digital platform. These are graduation business plans prepared by students from other groups, in the Winter semester 2020/2021. In other words, you develop either on your own idea, or on someone else’s idea. One of the things you will find out is that different business concepts have different potential, and follow very different paths for going to the international level.

Below, you will find the list of those pre-prepared business plans. They are coupled with links to the archives of my blog, where you can download them from. Still, you can find them as well in the ‘Files’ section of the group ‘International Management’, folder ‘Class materials’.

>> Pizzeria >> https://discoversocialsciences.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Pizzeria-Business-plan.docx

>> Pancake Café >> https://discoversocialsciences.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Pancake-Cafe-Business-Plan.pptx

>> Never Alone >> https://discoversocialsciences.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Never-Alone-business-plan.pdf

>> 3D Virtual Fitting Room >> https://discoversocialsciences.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/3D-Virtual-Fitting-Room-Business-Plan.docx

>> ToyBox >> https://discoversocialsciences.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/ToyBox-Business-Plan.pdf

>> Chess Manufacturing (semi-finished, interesting to develop from that form) >> https://discoversocialsciences.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Chess-Business-Plan-Semi-Done.docx

>> Second-hand market for luxury goods >> https://discoversocialsciences.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Business-Plan-second-hand-market-for-luxury-fashion.docx

We will abundantly use real-life cases of big, internationally branched businesses as our business models. Some of them are those which you already know from past semesters, whilst other might be new to you:

>> Netflix >> https://ir.netflix.net/ir-overview/profile/default.aspx

>> Tesla >> https://ir.tesla.com/

>> PayPal >> https://investor.pypl.com/home/default.aspx

>> Solar Edge >> https://investors.solaredge.com/investor-overview

>> Novavax >> https://ir.novavax.com/investor-relations

>> Pfizer >> https://investors.pfizer.com/investors-overview/default.aspx

>> Starbucks >> https://investor.starbucks.com/ir-home/default.aspx

>> Amazon >> https://ir.aboutamazon.com/overview/default.aspx

That orientation on real business cases means that the course of International Management is, from your point of view, a course of market research, business planning, and basic empirical science, more than a theoretical course. This is precisely what we are going to be doing in our classes: market research, business planning, and basic empirical science. 

You can benefit from running yourself through my online course of business planning, to be found at https://discoversocialsciences.com/the-course-of-business-planning/ .

The basic structure of the business plan which you will prepare is the following:

  • Section 1: Executive summary. This is a summary of the essentials, developed in further sections of the business plan. Particular focus on why and how going international with that business concept.
  • Section 2: Description of the business concept. How do we create, and capture value added in that thing? What kind of value added is that? What are the goods we market? Who are our target customers? What kind of really existing, operational business models, observable in actually operational companies, do we emulate in that business?
  • Section 3: Market research. We focus on collecting and presenting information on our customers, and our competitors.
  • Section 4: Organization. How are we going to structure human work in that business? How many people do we need, and what kind of organizational structure should we make them work in? What is the estimate, total payroll per month and per year, in that organization?
  • Section 5: The strategy for going international. Can we develop an original, proprietary technology, and apply it in different national markets? Can we benefit from the economies of scale, or those of scope, as we go international? Can we optimize and standardize our business concept into a franchise, attractive for smaller partners in foreign markets? << this is the ‘INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT’ part of that business plan. Now, you demonstrate your understanding of what international management is.
  • Section 6: The corporate business structure. Do you see that business as one compact business entity, which operates internationally via digital platforms and contracts with external partners, or, conversely, would you rather create a network of affiliated companies in separate national (regional?) markets, all tied to and controlled by one mother company? Develop on those options and justify your choice. 
  • Section 7: The financial plan. Plan of revenues, costs, and of the resulting profit/loss for 3 years ahead. The balance sheet we need to start with, and its prospective changes over the next 3 years. The prospective cash-flow.

Guidelines for the graduation project in International Trade Policy Summer semester 2021

You graduate the course of ‘International Trade Policy’ by preparing a project. Your project will be a business report, the kind you could have to prepare if you are assistant to the CEO of a big firm, or to a prime minister. You are supposed to prepare a report on the impact of trade on individual businesses and national economies, in a sort of controlled economic experiment, limited in scope and in space. Your goal in the preparation of that project is to develop active understanding of international trade.

You can access the files provided as additional materials for this assignment in two ways. Below in this document, I provide links to the archives of my blog, ‘Discover social sciences’. On the other hand, all those files are to find in the ‘Files’ section of the ‘International Trade Policy’ group, in the folder ‘Class Materials’.

Your report will have two sections. In Section A, you study the impact of international trade on a set of businesses. Your business cases encompass real companies, some of which you already know from the course of microeconomics – Tesla, Netflix, Amazon, H&M – as well as new business entities which can emerge as per the business plans introduced below (these are real business plans made by students in other groups in the Winter semester 2020/2021).  

In the Section B of your report, imagine that you are the government of, respectively, Poland, Ukraine, and France. Imagine that businesses from Part A grow in your country. Given the macroeconomic characteristics of your national economy, which types of those businesses are likely to grow the most, and which are not really fit? As a country, as those businesses grow, would you see your exports grow, or would it be rather an increase in your imports? How would it affect your overall balance on trade? What would you do as a government and why?

Additional guidelines and materials for the Section A of your report:

You can make a simplifying assumption that businesses can develop with and through trade along two different, although not exactly exclusive paths:

  • Case A: there is a technology with potential for growth, which can be developed through expanding its target market, with exports or with franchise
  • Case B: the gives business can develop significant economies of scale and scope, and trade, i.e. exports or/and imports, are a way to achieve that

You can benefit from studying the model contract of sales in international trade: https://discoversocialsciences.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/sale_of_perishables_model_contract.pdf

… as well as studying the so-called Incoterms >> https://discoversocialsciences.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Incoterms.pdf , which are standard conditions of delivery in international trade.

The early business concepts developed by students from other groups, which you are supposed to assess as for their capacity to grow through trade, are:

The investor relations sites of the real, big companies, whose development with trade you are supposed to study as well:

Additional guidelines and materials for the Section B of your report:

The so-called trade profiles of countries, accessible with the World Trade Organization: https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/publications_e/trade_profiles20_e.htm

Example of an international trade agreement, namely than between South Korea and Australia: https://discoversocialsciences.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/korea-australia-free-trade-agreement.pdf

Macroeconomic profiles of Poland, Ukraine, and France >> https://discoversocialsciences.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Macroeconomic-Profiles.xlsx

Published by Krzysztof_Wasniewski

I am an economist, active as academic teacher and researcher, for 11 years now at the Faculty of Management, The Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Krakow University, Krakow, Poland.

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