Stephen Ezell, author of the recent book “Innovation Economics – The Race for Global Advantage”, published by Yale University Press, presented a lively introduction and presided over a critical discussion to a knowledgable audience.
Innovation Economics – The Race for Global Advantage (Yale University Press, September 2012) explains t
hat economic growth today hinges on the ability to innovate. Because of this, a fierce race for global innovation leadership has emerged, as nations try to incubate, grow, or attract the highest-value-added economic activity they can: the high-wage, knowledge-intensive manufacturing, research, information technology, and services industries and jobs that power modern innovation-based economies. Countries that win in this competition will be those that introduce a range of smart technology, talent, trade, tax, and investment policies to turbocharge the competitiveness of their economies. Unfortunately, while dozens of nations have made support for technology and innovation a central tenet of their economic growth strategy, the United States and the United Kingdom have fallen behind. In fact, the similarities in the nature and causes of the innovation and industrial decline experienced by the United States in the past decade and the United Kingdom from the 1950s to 1980s are truly striking. Both nations failed to enact the right innovation-supporting policies, and both have paid the price with industrial decline. Mr. Ezell will talk about the new contours of the completion for innovation-based economic growth, and explain what the US and UK must do to regain leadership in this race.
Read the reviews of Innovation Economics in The Economist and The New York Times.
About the author of the book: Stephen Ezell is a Senior Analyst with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), with a focus on innovation policy, science and technology policy, international competitiveness, and trade, manufacturing, and services issues. Mr. Ezell comes to ITIF from Peer Insight, an innovation research and consulting firm he co-founded in 2003 to study the practice of innovation in service industries. At Peer Insight, Mr. Ezell led the Global Service Innovation Consortium, published multiple research papers on service innovation, and researched national service innovation policies being implemented by governments worldwide.
