Sea Change? Asia, America, and Innovation in the 21st Century
Wednesday, May 4, 201612:00 PM - 1:30 PM (Pacific)
Encina Hall, Third Floor, Central, C330
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305
American innovation has helped power economic growth and rising living standards at home and abroad for nearly two centuries. Today, many government officials, corporate executives, and researchers worry that the American innovation machine is losing its dynamism. Others worry that the United States is about to be overtaken by rising Asian technological superpowers, like China, and that this will constrain the living standards of future generations of Americans. Lee Branstetter draws upon the most recent data and economic scholarship to argue that neither fear is consistent with the evidence. Instead, the evidence points to the emergence of an increasingly integrated global R&D system in which the emerging innovative strengths of nations like China reinforce American technological progress and productivity growth far more than they threaten it. Branstetter concludes with a set of policy recommendations that can help ensure robust technological progress and economic growth in the 21st century.