Technology & Innovation

“Founding father” of virtual reality explores the ways digital platforms change economic relationships Computer scientist Jaron Lanier explains the uneasy relationship between an analog world and a corporate digital infrastructure.

Richard Vague looks at what it’ll take for the U.S. to win the R&D race

As technology and deregulation continue to shape the labor market, maintaining strong worker protections is as important as ever

As automation takes on more routine tasks, work will become more about creativity, ethics, and empathy

Under the guise of “philanthropy,” business elites have an increasing grip on society

We need a new system of rules for the digital 21st century that enhances global digital cooperation and welfare. Nothing less than a historic gathering of the world’s key decision makers will get us there.    

Instead of rewarding the taxpayers and employees who actually create value for the tech giant, Apple is doling out massive stock buybacks

Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to replace routine jobs, says Dr. Kai-Fu Lee. But done right, that process could allow us to “pursue dreams, spend time with our loved ones and find out why we exist as humans”

The Rise of China and the Future of WorkArtificial intelligence could replace routine jobs but allow us to “pursue dreams”

“We don’t look after each other at all,” says Jeffrey Sachs on America today

How corporate raiders coopted “shareholder democracy” for their own ends

This paper explains how hedge-fund activists are exerting power over corporate resourceallocation far in excess of the actual voting power of their shareholdings.

The “dean of short sellers” says bitcoin is the last thing he’d want to own in the event of a catastrophe.

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

Alberto Baccini’s presentation for INET’s panel on research evaluation at the G20 Global Solutions Summit in Berlin, May 2018.

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In the face of  laissez-faire capitalism at home and resurgent nationalism across the globe, INET offers an innovative look at the causes of—and solutions for—the problems that ail a fissuring world economy.

Economist Morton Schapiro, president of Northwestern University, and his colleague, literary critic and Slavic studies scholar Saul Morson, argue that—contrary to popular belief—studying the humanities is the key to not getting outsourced.

The shocking—but illustrative—example of how an Italian government agency concocted statistics to evaluate scholarship, hid them from the public, and masqueraded them as science. It’s a growing phenomenon

Sen. Tammy Baldwin features arguments in questions to SEC nominees, pharmaceutical industry witness

We examine the hypothesis that the slowdown in productivity following the Great Recession was in significant part an endogenous response to the contraction in demand that induced the downturn.

Austerity measures have battered the region and created instability throughout the Eurozone. Here’s one way out of the mess.

“The stories we tell ourselves about the world are a map of the world as we see it. And if we want to change the world, we have to change the story first.”

A discussion with Steven M. Fazzari, INET Grantee and the Bert A. & Jeanette L. Lynch Distinguished Professor of Economics, Washington University.

We want an economy that generates stable and equitable growth—or what I call “sustainable prosperity.” We want productivity growth that makes it possible for the population to have higher living standards over time. We want an equitable sharing of the gains from productivity growth among those whose work efforts and financial resources contribute to that growth. And we want sufficient job stability to enable workers to remain in productive employment for some four decades at work while providing them with enough savings to provide them with adequate incomes over some two decades of retirement.

Building symbiotic public-private partnerships

Growing income inequality is threatening the American middle class, and the middle class is vanishing before our eyes. We are still one country, but the stretch of incomes is fraying the unity of our nation.

The Precariat under Rentier Capitalism Guy Standing We are in the midst of a Global Transformation, analogous to Karl Polanyi’s Great Transformation described in his seminal 1944 book. Whereas Polanyi’s Transformation was about constructing national market systems, today’s is about the painful construction of a global market system. To use Polanyi’s term, the ‘dis-embedded’ phase has been dominated by an ideology of market liberalisation, commodification and privatisation, orchestrated by financial interests, as in his model. The similarities also extend to today’s fundamental challenge, how to construct a ‘re-embedded’ phase, with new systems of regulation, distribution and social protection.

A discussion with Michael Grubb, INET Grantee and Professor of Energy and Climate Change at University College of London.

“Dual Economy” models were developed to explain growth in the developing world. Now they appear necessary to comprehend the high income trap that afflicts the world’s most developed economies.

What Do Citations Actually Measure in Economics and How Should Economic Journals and Department Review Committees Use This Data? 

William Janeway’s Far-Ranging Seminar on Fundamental Debates in Innovation and Finance

The Implications of Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative for China and the World Economy

The Idea That Businesses Exist Solely to Enrich Shareholders Is Harmful Nonsense

The Theory of the Firm, Financial Flows, and Economic Performance

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

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

Conventional wisdom has it that the primary function of the stock market is to raise cash for companies for the purpose of investing in productive capabilities. The conventional wisdom is wrong.

A look at America’s strange and dangerous approach to medicine, and how to fix it

In recent decades, market values have crowded out non- market norms in almost every aspect of life—medicine, education, government, law, art, sports, even family life and personal relations. Without quite realizing it, we have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society. Is this where we want to be?

Along the entire “innovation chain” — from research and development, to production and commercialization — government and private sectors have very different roles to play.

How rationalization, marketization, and globalization characterize the U.S. economy during the past 50 years, and how the behavior of companies and fate of American workers have changed during this process.

The decline in productivity growth has a longer history

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

Long term labor shortages do not happen naturally in market economies. That is not to say that they don’t exist. They are created when employers or government agencies tamper with the natural functioning of the wage mechanism.

Long term labor shortages do not happen naturally in market economies.

Taxing the use of robotics may or may not be the answer, but the question remains how to compensate for the growing inequality created by our changing economies

As part of our “Experts on Trial Series”, Antonella Palumbo argues for stripping away ‘scientific’ shibboleths that mask social and political choices

Explore your curiosity in economics in an open and critical community.

The practical question in Washington today is not whether regulations will go, but whether anything will replace them

Institute scholar Arjun Jayadev argues that while TPP is dead, its damaging legacy on intellectual property rights is likely to shape future bilateral trade agreements

Research by INET-affiliated scholars shows the US lags far behind its peers on inclusive growth, suggesting inequality is not an inevitable consequence of globalization and technology

Evidence thus far questions the assumption that robotics are eliminating jobs. INET Senior Vice President for Programs Rick McGahey says the UBI debate should focus on the long-term weakening of labor’s bargaining power

Notes from the Institute’s Director of Research on some significant papers and contributions produced in 2016 under the INET rubric 

As the world turns upside down, Mariana Mazzucato discusses how to shape an economy that works for everyone

The business corporation is the central economic institution in a modern economy. A company’s senior executives, with the advice and support of the board of directors, are responsible for the allocation of corporate resources to investments in productive capabilities. Senior executives also advise the board on the extent to which, given the need to invest in productive capabilities, the company can afford to make cash distributions to shareholders. Motivating corporate resource-allocation decisions are the modes of remuneration that incentivize and reward the top executives of these companies. A sound analysis of the operation and performance of a modern economy requires an understanding of not only how much these executives are paid but also the ways in which the prevailing system of executive pay influences their decisions to allocate corporate resources.

Flows of goods and services, people and capital have overwhelmed the ability of political processes to accommodate them

A discussion on President-elect Trump’s economic agenda and its implications for the U.S. and world economies.

Mission-oriented public investment is vital to spur a revival of private-sector investment

In an Al Jazeera documentary “In Search of the Great American Job”, Institute scholar William Lazonick offers some arch insights into the relationship between financialization — particularly the “shareholder value” ideology in corporations, which drives the transfer of profits to shareholders through stock buybacks — and job creation and inequality.

Offshoring manufacturing may have hurt many working people in America, but professionals and intellectual property have been robustly protected

Improved access to education is often touted as the key to addressing racial inequality in the economy, but Lisa Cook’s research into the innovation economy shows that women and African-Americans are underrepresented despite their educational qualifications.

A conversation with Richard Vague, Managing Partner at Gabriel Investments and Chairman of the Governor’s Woods Foundation.

Vice President warns that corporate stock buybacks restrict America’s long-term prosperity, citing the research of Institute grantee William Lazonick who has long argued the same

In June of this year, Swiss voters saw an initiative on their ballots calling for an “unconditional basic income” that would “allow the whole population to lead a decent life and participate in public life.” Put on the ballot by a petition drive after it was rejected in parliament, the initiative was rejected by 77 percent of Swiss voters, with 23 percent approving.

Report to the Institute for New Economic Thinking on the statistical measurement and policy implications of the compensation of the highest- paid U.S. corporate executives

Prof. Sanjeev Goyal explains his general theory of network formation based on individual incentives, and their economic implications

Is Market Capitalism simply an accident of certain factors that came together in the 19th and 20th centuries? Does the innovation of economics require a new economics of innovation? Is the study of economics deeply affected by the incentive structures faced by economists themselves, necessitating a study of the “economics of economics”?

With the power of modern computing being harnessed into increasingly small and portable devices, what do digital platforms mean for the entrenched global economy?

A response to Arjun Jayadev’s argument about the impact of automation on our work and life

Anxiety over human labor being replaced by cyborgs may be in vogue, but it’s overblown — machines may help us achieve healthier and more meaningful lives

Technology will ruin America if we don’t compensate for its impact, warns Andy Stern.

Julia Cage warns that a media ravaged by market forces cannot serve democracy’s need for an informed citizenry.

Anyone watching the stock market has seen this: a post hits Twitter containing old news, and investors react as if it were new.

Industrial journalist Ken Jacobson and economist William Lazonick (both of the Academic-Industry Research Network), call for an end to stock market manipulation through buybacks.

Economic growth and rising prosperity does not happen at the moment of invention. Only an innovation policy aiming to maximise activities throughout the innovation cycle will succeed in capturing economic growth that enhance the welfare of all citizens.

Background paper for a presentation to the Seattle University School of Law Berle IV Symposiun, “The Future of Financial/Securities Markets,” London June 14-15, 2012.

We study the lags with which new technologies are adopted across countries, and their long-run penetration rates once they are adopted.

We estimate the effect of the diffusion of photovoltaic (PV) systems on the fraction of votes obtained by the German Green Party.

This chapter discusses different approaches pursued to explore three broad questions related to technology diffusion: what general patterns characterize the diffusion of technologies, and how have they changed over time; what are the key drivers of technology, and what are the macroeconomic consequences of technology.

For most economists and indeed for social scientists in general such a question induces shudders as already asking this seems wrong – aren’t governments more prone to failures than markets, and aren’t governments supposed to provide basic and stable institutions for markets to function?

Many Americans have expressed outrage over Pfizer’s plan, through its merger with Allergan, to move its tax home from the United States to Ireland. Now, in a New York Times op-ed, Carl Icahn, the billionaire corporate raider turned hedge fund activist, has joined the chorus. He labels the Pfizer-Allergan deal a “travesty,” blaming the U.S.’s “uncompetitive international tax system.”

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

Why are we paying for corporate behavior that crushes innovation, cheats taxpayers, cost jobs, and heightens inequality?

How much does the standard theory of externalities and public goods really say?

Will environmental limits, including limits on the climate system, slow or even halt economic growth? If not, how will the nature of economic growth have to shift?

The purpose of the paper is to argue for attention to be paid, not only to choice of theory, but also to choice of theoretical approach, in order to address issues posed by the crisis.

Investment in productive capabilities provides the foundation for economic growth.

By integrating the history of industrial development in Britain and the United States with the ideas of leading economic thinkers, this essay demonstrates the absurdity of perfect competition as the ideal of economic efficiency.

Government intervention is often perceived as a constraint on market forces and thereby on economic growth.

Central to John Maynard Keynes (1941) original Bretton Woods proposal was an international clearing union that would issue a new international currency by fiat called bancor. Among other functions, this international central bank would finance the stabilization of individual commodity prices through commodity buffer stocks.

For more than three decades, orthodox economists, policy makers in government and central bankers and their economic advisors, using some variant of old classical economic theory [OCET], have insisted that (1) government regulations of markets and large government spending policies are the cause of all our economic problems and (2) ending big government and freeing markets, especially financial markets, from government regulatory controls is the solutionto our economic problems, domestically and internationally.

It’s a singular honor to have been asked to deliver the Butlin Lecture. I first met Noel Butlin when I had the pleasure of visiting Australian National University for two months in what was, from my perspective, the summer of 1985.

“Natural rate theory” has dominated interpretations of economic trends and policy prescriptions over many decades. European-type welfare state institution were claimed to cause a compressed wage distribution that distorts otherwise well functioning labor markets.

Inequality has been growing and destabilizing confidence in many countries in recent years.