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Wages have been spreading out across workers over time – or in other words, the 90th/50th wage ratio has risen over time. A key question is, has the productivity distribution also spread out across worker skill levels over time? Using our calculations of productivity by skill level for the United States, we show that the distributions of both wages and productivity have spread out over time, as the right tail lengthens for both. We add Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) countries, showing that the wage–productivity correlation exists, such that gains in aggregate productivity, or GDP per person, have resulted in higher wages for workers at the top and bottom of the wage distribution. However, across countries, those workers in the upper-income ranks have seen their wages rise the most over time. The most likely international factor explaining these wage increases is the skill-biased technological change of the digital revolution. The new artificial intelligence (AI) revolution that has just begun seems to be having similar skill-biased effects on wages. But this current AI, called “supervised learning,” is relatively similar to past technological change. The AI of the distant future will be “unsupervised learning,” and it could eventually have an effect on the jobs of the most highly skilled.

Since the 1980s agricultural biotech investments by the public sector have increased substantially in both China and India. In the last two decades there has also been a dramatic increase in private section investment in agricultural biotechnology particularly in India. The promise of major benefits of Bt cotton identified in early socioeconomic studies of Bt cotton has proven to be true. Bt cotton has spread to at least 66% and 85% of total cotton areas of China and India, respectively – wherever bollworm is a major problem. Bt cotton continues to control bollworm in both countries, and farmers continue as major beneficiaries rather than biotech or seed companies. The major impacts have been yield increases in India and reduced pesticides consumption in China. In China, evidence also suggests that Bt cotton has suppressed the bollworm population so that non-Bt cotton growers and producers of other crops that are susceptible to bollworm are also benefitting.

The chapter also provides evidence that in the near future Bt rice and Bt eggplant could have major positive impacts by reducing pesticide use and farmers’ exposure to chemical pesticides and increasing yields. Both crops were approved for commercial production by government biosafety regulators, but are not yet available for commercial cultivation.

We experimentally investigate how the level of government (either federal or state) and whether funding is being allocated to enforcement or service efforts in a revenue agency affects trust in the agency, as well as support for the funding initiative. We find that the two independent variables interact, such that trust in the state agency is not affected by whether the proposed funding would be allocated to service or enforcement efforts. But, at the federal level (the Internal Revenue Service), trust in the agency is significantly higher when the proposed funding is to hire additional service employees as opposed to hiring additional enforcement employees. We also find that the level of government moderates the mediating effect of trust in the agency on the relation between the use of funds and support for the funding.

The European states, which started the industrial revolution by making use of mechanical power, provided their agricultural development by producing new technology tools that will increase the production in the agricultural sector. The Ottoman Empire made many attempts to increase agricultural sector in the nineteenth century and implemented policies to increase production. In this direction, primitive agricultural tools were changed, and many encouraging steps were taken to adopt and spread modern technology in the country. As a result of the policies made, since the second half of the nineteenth century, the use of modern technology has increased in the provinces such as İzmir, Edirne and Adana and then in Konya and Ankara, since the railways reached the interior. Increasing accessibility to international markets with the development of commercial agriculture and railway construction are also important factors that encourage the use of machinery. When the use of machinery increased in the twentieth century, many machine companies opened dealers in the country and attempted to reach the inner parts of the country. With the increase in the use of modern agricultural technology, agricultural production has increased and provided significant benefits to the labor problem, especially in regions where commercial agriculture has developed. The effect of modern technology on the increase in production can be seen in the agricultural numbers in 1909–1914. When the agricultural census is taken into consideration, although the production areas did not increase, the production amount increased. However, the contribution of modern agricultural technology to production was still somewhat limited. The reason for this is that due to the high prices of agricultural machinery, small farm owners cannot supply these machines.