| Webinar Announcement (January 22, 12:00-1:00 PM): Strategically important technologies – what role do innovation agencies play? (Ylva Strander, Ministry of Climate and Enterprise, Sweden) In a world with geopolitical uncertainty, rapid technological development and a global arms race, countries need an ambitious technology policy. It is required to cope with future competitiveness, security and to change to a sustainable and resilient society. In a recent report, the Swedish innovation agency Vinnova identified six priority technology areas. Ylva Strander (formerly Head of Department, Systems transformation and Policy, Vinnova) contributed to this report. She now works for the Swedish Ministry of Climate and Enterprise. Vinnova is considered by many as a model for the rest of Europe, and the Swedish innovation ecosystem has been relatively good at producing successful startups. Time: January 22, 2025, 12:00 – 1:00 PM Online Presentation and discussion in English. Click HERE to register. What caught our attention in early January (selection): Research and development expenditures in Switzerland, and much more |
Every two years, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), with the support of economiesuisse, conducts a survey of companies in Switzerland to learn more about their research and development activities. The results were presented in Bern on January 14, 2025,by the FSO and economiesuisse. In 2023, private companies in Switzerland spent nearly 18 billion francs on their own research and development (R&D), which is 3.5% more per year than in the last survey in 2021. The ‚Pharmaceutical‘ sector continued to invest the most at nearly 5.5billion francs, although the annual average for this industry decreased by 6%.Around 69,000 people participated in R&D activities, a quarter of whom were women. Here is the link to the FSO press release (and additional documents). Here is the press release from economiesuisse. ——————————————- |
| “An analysis of the recommendations for Capital Markets Union in the Draghi, Letta and Noyer reports”, by the Economic Governance and EMU Scrutiny Unit (EGOV) of the Directorate-General for Internal Policies ——————————————- The Future of Jobs Report 2025 by the WEF. Certainly an interesting and comprehensive overview! „…on current trends over the 2025 to 2030 period job creation and destruction due to structural labour-market transformation will amount to 22%of today’s total jobs. This is expected to entail the creation of new jobs equivalent to 14% of today’s total employment, amounting to 170 million jobs. However, this growth is expected to be offset by the displacement of the equivalent of 8% (or 92 million) of current jobs, resulting in net growth of 7% of total employment, or 78 million jobs.“ ——————————————- Open AI’s Economic Blueprint The Blueprint outlines policy proposals for how the US can maximize AI’s benefits, bolster national security, and drive economic growth. ——————————————- Food for thought! „Are Big Cities Important for Economic Growth?“ by MatthewTurner and David N. Weil. „Cities are often described as engines of economic growth. We assess this statement quantitatively. We focus on two mechanisms: a static agglomeration effect that makes production in bigger cities more efficient, and a dynamic effect whereby urban scale impacts the productivity of invention“ „If city sizes had been limited to one million people since 1900, output in 2010 would have been only 8% lower than its observed value.“ ——————————————- Ifo President Clemens Fuest does not see Germany on the brink, unlike the Tesla CEO. Nevertheless, it will be difficult for the next government, says the economist in an interview with FAZ. ——————————————- Good interview with WTO Chief Economist Ralph Ossa. „Those who focus on their independence are investing in their weaknesses“ ——————————————- The „2025 Economic Report of the President“ of the United States was published at the beginning of January. As always, there is something interesting for everyone! For instance, chapter 2 „How Remote Work is Reshaping the Economy„. ——————————————- NBER Entrepreneurship Research Boot Camp 2025 This intensive workshop provides an introduction into the leading research topics in the economics of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial finance and is intended to promote research in these areas. ——————————————- Productivity Bite: Pharma as Growth Driver Often, when comparing economic figures, entire countries are discussed. For instance, one often reads that Switzerland or the United States are very innovative. Germany was long described this way too. However, quite suddenly, the main talk now is about Germany being a „sick man.“ Sometimes these designations for countries overlook the fact that economic growth is often driven by just a few sectors or even companies. For example, Switzerland and Denmark have benefited from a booming pharmaceutical industry in recent years (Figure 1). If you exclude the pharmaceutical industry from Switzerland’s figures, Switzerland suddenly doesn’t look any better than Germany (note that for these illustrative purposes, I haven’t subtracted the pharmaceutical industry’s real value creation from real economic output in a methodologically completely correct way. The main pattern is correct.). Around one-third of economic growth in recent years was generated by the pharmaceutical industry. Without the medicine from pharma, Switzerland would almost be a „sick man“ or „sick woman“ too! For Switzerland, this shows how important it is to continue nurturing the strengths of the pharmaceutical industry. At the same time, productivity should also be increased in other areas of the economy to avoid too high a dependence on a single industry. |
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In Germany, the German Council of Economic Experts has published its annual report
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