1 / 8

Unveiling America’s Innovation Future: Leading Sectors and Predictions

Explore the past eras of industrial development and what comes next, focusing on leading sectors and the supply and demand perspectives. Delve into the implications of advancements in information technology and biotech on the economy.

ddeese
Download Presentation

Unveiling America’s Innovation Future: Leading Sectors and Predictions

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. America’s Innovation Future J. Bradford DeLong UC Berkeley and Kauffman Foundation May 2013

  2. Outline • Big question: what are likely to be the most exciting and most fruitful focuses for industry studies over the next generation? • Four eras of industrial development in the past • What comes in era number five? • Leading sectors: supply and demand perspectives • Predictions

  3. Four Eras of Industrial Development in the Past • Starting with the problem of getting water out of coal mines so you can fuel London… • Concentrated technological change in a few key leading sectors, 1730-1840 • The effects on the economy as a whole of the build-out of the key leading sectors of the Industrial Revolution, 1790-1890 • The broad-front coming of the age of economy-of-scale-driven mass production, 1860-1950 • The broad-front building-out of distribution and information, 1950-2010

  4. What Comes Next? • Era Number Five… • More of the same? • A reversion to one of the earlier three patterns? • Supply and demand perspectives

  5. The Supply Perspective • Ideas, energy, control • Ideas as to how to manipulate matter and energy • Extra energy to do the manipulation • Control of the process • Information technology as providing us with substitutes for the human eye-brain-hand loop as a control mechanism • Biotech as providing us with substitutes for the human eye-brain-hand loop as a control mechanism • Bad news for “unskilled” labor

  6. The Demand Perspective • Key questions for leading sectors • How elastic is demand? • In what directions does demand push innovation? • Infotech • Demand is not terribly elastic • Move and organize bits more cheaply • Health care • Demand is extraordinarily elastic indeed • Do more things rather than do things more cheaply

  7. Predictions • The supply and demand perspectives are pushing in the same direction • Information technology will drive to get the (still expensive) human eye-brain-hand out of the control loop • But that is not where the money is going to flow • Health care broadly construed will grab the lion’s share of spending increases • For that is where the money will go

  8. Implications • The economy is all about where the money is—what things are expensive and valuable • Interesting research questions concerning infotech and transformations of control in industries • But that isn’t where the money is going to be • And interesting research questions concerning the interface of industries with biotech/health care • And that is where the money is going to be • That is what people are going to care about

More Related