Economy

Why Innovation Hubs Fail

Successful innovation hubs depend on who is leading, and how.

Beyond Elite Innovation

Innovation is not just for elites. The poor and rural innovate all the time, using what they have.

What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about Innovation

To generate local, inclusive prosperity, cities must think beyond tech accelerators and science parks.

How Emerging Markets Hurt Poor Countries

Financial globalization was supposed to spur development. Instead it transfers money to the Global North and exacerbates existing inequalities.

The Circular Economy

Pushing back against the throw-away economy, the EU is designing an industrial policy around garbage.

Economic Policy with a Mission

Final response: Missions concern far more than scientific and industrial development. They are ultimately about public value creation.

Against Economic Nationalism

A crucial element is missing in recent calls to revive industrial policy: a robust internationalist vision for restructuring the global economy.

What About Workers?

Without centering labor in industrial policy, both the economics and politics will fail.

A Flight Plan That Fails

While this call for moonshots is stirring, it ultimately says too little about how to turn this vision into reality.

Back Down to Earth

The “moonshots” proposed could not be accomplished without a transformation of politics as we know it.

Steering Finance

Industrial policy must not lose sight of underlying economic issues.

Industrial Policy Requires Experimentation

Setting a mission requires bold leadership, but following through requires learning and iterative experimentation.

State of Emergency

The answer cannot lie in the sound creation of an “industrial policy,” however ambitious. We need wholesale structural reform.

Why We Need an Agency for National Technology Strategy

While missions are important, even more important are new institutions that will cut a path across them.

Getting Down to Cases

Public policy needs to make some hard choices about priorities and strategies.

Industrial Policy’s Comeback

We need a mission-oriented approach to the economy that embraces an active role for government in spurring growth and innovation.

The Specter of Inflation

Democrats don’t lose elections because of rising prices. They lose when they cut spending and raise interest rates, sacrificing other goals at the altar of price stability.

Beyond Neoliberal Trade

With globalization under increasing scrutiny, national governments are poised to exert more power over markets.

We Don’t Know, But Let’s Try It

For economist Albert O. Hirschman, social planning meant creative experimentation rather than theoretical certainty.

Why Neoliberalism Needs Neofascists

We’re witnessing the last-ditch effort of neoliberal capitalism to rescue itself from crisis.

China and the Lure of Global Capitalism

The country’s explosive development has relied on markets—at the cost of earlier ideals.

Neoliberalism’s Bailout Problem

Mainstream economics ignores the massive government interventions that “free market” capitalism requires.

Our Insurance Dystopia

Private insurance companies have long dominated the provision of social security in the United States, but resistance is growing.

What Isn’t Taught in Israeli Schools

A Palestinian mother’s perspective.

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