Innovation Economics: The Race for Global Advantage delivers a critical wake-up call: a fierce global race for innovation advantage is under way, and while other nations are making support for technology and innovation a central tenet of their economic strategies and policies, America lacks a robust innovation policy. Unless the United States enacts public policies to reflect this reality, Americans face the relatively lower standards of living associated with a noncompetitive national economy.  The authors explore how a weak innovation economy not only contributed to the Great Recession but is delaying America's recovery from it and how innovation in the United States compares with that in other developed and developing nations.

The book is a detailed, pragmatic road map for America to regain its global innovation advantage by 2020, as well as maximize the global supply of innovation and promote sustainable globalization.

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“Innovation Economics: The Race for Global Advantage offers a frank assessment of many of the underlying causes of our economic challenges and helps explain why recovery has remained so elusive. Rob Atkinson and Stephen Ezell have collaborated on a timely call to action: America can compete and win the global economic race, but only if we change our mindset and update many of our policies”—Senator Mark Warner (D, VA)

“The United States is increasingly being left behind in the global competition for high-value production and jobs. While this trend is lowering our standard of living, there are steps government can take to stem this decline, such as making STEM education a national priority and pursuing a 21st century growth agenda that acknowledges the important role that innovation plays. Innovation Economics is an important read for those of us concerned about our nation’s long-term economic challenges but optimistic about solutions to improve our future in our own time.”—Congressman Richard Hanna (R-NY)

“Innovation Economics offers the most pragmatic guideposts for American and global economic renewal today. I recommend it for every leader in or out of office.“—Calestous Juma, Harvard Kennedy School

“As a long-time analyst of the trends shaping the global economy, I am struck by the increasing number of economic and political leaders that do not grasp how serious the structural economic problems facing America are. I hope they read Innovation Economics. It “speaks truth power” with candor, reason and wit and offers fresh thinking and a path forward. Rob Atkinson and Stephen Ezell have been making important contributions and better ideas about economic policy for years. Their new book is eye-opening and alarming and arrives at a critical time.” —Lenny Mendonca, McKinsey & Company, McKinsey Global Institute

“Atkinson and Ezell provide the definitive guide to innovation and its impact on economic prosperity. If you care about innovation, you need to read this book.”—Justin Rattner, Chief Technology Officer, Intel Corporation

When looked at from an innovation economics perspective, it is clear that a worker shortage is not only not likely it’s simply impossible, since by definition the output of workers must equal their consumption. It is possible to have a worker surplus, which is what happens when the unemployment rate rises above its frictional rate as it has been for almost four years now. It is even possible to spot occupational shortages, as has been the case with some occupations like computer scientists and engineers. But the converse is not possible. There can be no such thing as a negative unemployment rate. In other words, the demand for labor can never exceed the supply of labor. This is because labor demand is determined by what people consume and that in turn is determined by the amount of goods and services the workforce produces.

In the fall Breakthrough Journal, ITIF President Rob Atkinson fires back at the Center for Economic Policy and Research's Dean Baker. In response to Baker's sharp critique of Atkinson's assault on liberal economic orthodoxy, Atkinson acknowledges that Keynesian spending can spur demand and address issues of fairness but concludes, "You can argue for or against these policies on their merits, but ultimately these policies do not grow the proverbial pie. What the United States economy needs to be competitive in the globalized 21^st century economy cannot be addressed through intermittent productivity benefits that accrue as an afterthought of redistributionist policies, but the reverse: policy that holds innovation and productivity at its core."

In this Breakthrough Journal article, Rob Atkinson outlines the importance of embracing a much more robust innovation and competitiveness agenda, creating the incentives and support for American businesses necessary to promote sustained growth, and aggressively fighting to end foreign mercantilism, rather than reflexively supporting our own. In order to create the incentives and support for American businesses necessary progressives must develop a new economic doctrine with a coherent theory of how to drive productivity and innovation in an increasingly competitive global economy.