Christina Romer, Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors is a very articulate and direct woman. She is a UC Berkeley Economics professor and this “interview” took place at 5:15pm after a long conference day — but we were all mesmerized by this session. Greg Ip, the US Economics Editor for the Economist (and a Canadian by the way) was the interviewer.
The points that I managed to capture…
- We need to design a financial system that encourages positive risk taking and that has built in “sensible rules of the road”.
- Innovation has externalities — and a key part is to get government to subsidize it. MQ note: This is interesting because our provincial government has chosen “not” to subsidize.
- Better protection of Intellectual Property is critical.
- The role of government is to (1) create the right environment for innovation such as science and math education, general education and a stable financial system; (2) to make grants to support basic science — e.g. making the R & D tax credit in the US permanent (I think I got the figure right that the US has spent $147billion in R & D in the stimulus pkg). Important to use a peer review process. And also important to have accountability — the “science of science” in terms of making sure the programs are working.
An audience question came around the government’s investment in design thinking — given the wicked problems that we face, should all our investment be in the more traditional science and tech areas? She answered that the Annual Report of the White House Economic Advisory Council has a section on “jobs of the future” and that we should be paying more attention to a broader range of problem solving tools. Link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cea/economic-report-of-the-President
The session with Professor Romer was followed up by an Oxford-style debate on the proposition: Government is a key engine of innovation. The “against” team were John Perry Barlow, Founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Tyler Cowen, Professor, George Mason University.
The “in favour” team were Shirley Ann Jackson, President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Robert Reich, Former Secretary of Labour and Professor at UC Berkeley.
I didn’t take many notes because it was entertaining — in the sense that all were good speakers and especially Robert Reich and the two “against” guys were quite funny. At the end of the day the “in favour” team won the debate from the audience point of view. There was universal agreement that government obviously plays a role in innovation — but the “against” made the argument that they really aren’t a driver, an engine or even a road.
Just remembered one of Robert Reich’s lines — politics — made up of “poli” meaning many, and “tics” meaning blood sucking — in reference to his many years in Washington.
The end of a long day. More coming on Day two.