Understanding the Trade Winds: The Global Evolution of Production, Consumption, and the Internet

The purpose of this article is to encourage research on the evolution of consumer behavior within and across nations by illustrating how super-diffusion technologies spawn and drive great surges in economic innovation that profoundly change consumer behavior that leads to further economic innovation and progress that plays out over centuries. Economic history can be used as a frame for understanding past, present, and future consumer behavior, particularly in thinking about the likely impact of cyberspace technology on global consumer behavior. A systems-dynamic perspective is recommended to fully appreciate the intended and unintended winds of economic change that are now blowing around the globe. In the right hands, systems-dynamic feedback maps may become as valuable today as were the treasured maps that described the trade winds 500 years ago. Copyright 2000 by the University of Chicago.