Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages.

Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. “Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues. The printed word, however, is a cold medium, and this book requires concentrated reader application for reward. His insights into the nature of our society, the role the media play in it, the meaning of media, the actualities of the cold war (again that temperature reading is important) are provocative and brilliant. He differentiates between the cool and hot media, the former leaving more for the participant or user to do, the latter more comprehensive in its content - and indicates how these affect diversely the tribal or the individualistic culture. He extends his inquiry beyond the expected media of print, radio, television, telephone to include 'the mechanical bride' - the automobile, clothing - 'our extended skin,' money, clocks, housing. The medium itself, rather than the content, is the message, he asserts, and turns to inspect the manner in which it affects us. The Director of the Center for the Study of the Extensions of Man at the University of Toronto, Marshall MoLuhan here investigates the psychic and social consequences of technological media on man and his societies.

Marshall mcluhan 1964