Openness is good for the Economy

This post is mostly for my part in my group's presentation on openness, but please feel free to look at it. I've included a couple of links that are interesting and informative.


Brief Outline:    Openness and Economy/Business

   -Economy and Openness:

•     Greater Choice for Consumers
•     Increased competition and Lower Prices
•     Expanded Markets and Customer Bases
•     Global Investment Opportunities
•     Gains from Trade

   -Openness within a Business Structure

• Openness within a business organization allows for more creative and innovative ideas, and collaboration between employees.
• Austin Baughan posted a link on Google+ to the Bettermeans open business structure

  -Open Source and Business

• Link to Opensource.org
• Open Source software and materials are cheaper to obtain(often free), and to produce (it's like outsourcing for free)

• Open Source is like a market economy;  ideas come from the bottom up, and the darwinist nature of the market assures that only the best stuff prevails
• Mature Open Source software is the most reliable there is. It's been scrutinized by everyone and their dog, so it's well-refined, and has already been tested by many of the people who would want to use it. It's "as bulletproof as software can get.".

More Detail:

-Economy and Openness

• Greater Choice for Consumers : In an open economy, the domestic markets are merged with international markets and so the consumers are not limited to consume domestically produced goods and services. They can choose the best from the world market.  

•  Increased competition and Lower Prices:  A related benefit of an open economy is that the consumers have an increasing number of producers or goods and services competing for their business.Competition among producers results in lower prices and improved services. An open economy allows consumers to benefit from the lower labor and operating costs.

•  Expanded markets and Customer bases:  The benefits of an open economy are not limited to consumers. Global interaction allows companies to gain access to customers in other nations. This motivates them to produce world class products, and to expand their business and customer base.

•  Global Investment Opportunities:  For investors, an open economy expands the opportunities for investing capital. Investors large and small can choose to invest in known domestic companies, or they can invest in established industrial giants of other nations.  Investors with an appetite for risk, meanwhile, can invest in the emerging markets of less developed areas of the world, such as Latin America, Africa and southern Asia.  

• Gains from Trade:  One of the key principles of economics is that trade benefits all parties involved. International trade involves interactions with other economies and is therefore possible only among open economies.  Trade allows nations to specialize in producing the goods in which they have comparative advantages and trade with other nations to obtain goods in which those other nations specialize. This in turn provides consumers with a greater array of goods from which to select. Also, free and honest trade also has benefits of increased cultural exchange, and increased creativity and innovation, inspired by the exchange of ideas that occurs during trade.