Bill Janeway explains why “efficiency is the enemy of innovation,” and how venture capitalists and the state advance technological change

Innovation drives economic growth and welfare, and the industrial corporation drives innovation, says William Lazonick. But just how do corporations innovate?

The prevailing stock market ideology enriches value extractors, not value creators

Business school students are taught to extract resources instead of creating value.

The New York Times is having a “Room For Debate” discussion on its Opinion Page about how corporations should handle profits based on the Harvard Business Review article “Profits Without Prosperity” by William Lazonick of the University of Massachusetts Lowell, who is a grantee of the Institute for New Economic Thinking. The discussion features contributions by Bruce Greenwald, Peter Thiel, and Lazonick, among others. Lazonick argues that the capital being used for stock buybacks would be better spent on investment. Lazonick’s “Room For Debate” piece is below. To read the full discussion on The New York Times, click here.

This paper analyzes equilibrium, dynamics, and optimal decisions on the factor bias of innovation in a model of induced innovation.

Innovation is not a magic pill to solve the current afflictions that ail our 21st century economy.

Despite dismissive comments by the U.S. Treasury Secretary, facing the challenge posed by robotics replacing human labor raises key public policy questions 

Adair Turner at the Institute’s #HumanAfterAll conference in Toronto, CA (2014).

This note comments on Eric Weinstein’s, “How and Why Government, Universities, and Industries Create Domestic Labor Shortages of Scientists and High-Tech Workers,” posted recently on INET’s website.

Why we should worry about job quality, not quantity—or robot overlords