The global economy has changed dramatically over the past century and a half. When I lecture my Boston University business students on this topic, I use one of the world’s most transformative inventions to illustrate my point: the telephone.
Before the telephone was invented, it was impossible to communicate by voice across any distance. The landline in 1876, along with the telegraph a few decades earlier, revolutionized communications, leading leap by leap to the powerful computers tucked snugly in our pockets and purses today. And in the process, living standards exploded, with inflation-adjusted GDP surging from US$1,200 per person in 1870 to more than $10,000 today.
What follows are a few facts I like to share with my students, as well as several others that you might not be aware of about how the phone has reshaped our lives – and continues to do so.
‘Watson – I want to see you!’
One of the reasons I use the telephone in my lectures is because inventor Alexander Graham Bell created his phone and made the first call while a professor at Boston University, where I teach economics.
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