Do Governments Innovate?

 Most people - including me - would answer immediately - and say ‘No’.

However, things are not so simple.

Think of recent large-scale innovation changes.

Nuclear power for example.  Or space exploration.  Such massive innovations could not have happened without large-scale investment (and planning and coordination) from governments.

Other innovations cannot be fully diffused into markets without support from government t and government t agencies.  The rollout of electric vehicles cannot work without a sound national strategy for there provision of charging stations.

Spo, sometimes innovation needs a helping hand from government. This can be upfront in supporting massive technological change or post-event in supporting the diffusion snd uptake of new technologies.

Thus, new technology may take some time to show up in productivity figures.

This is, of course, exacerbated by the need in innovating firms to train the workforce in the use of new technology or systems - and promote the innovation to potential customers.

Government education and training policy also has to adapt and reflect technological change.

So change includes the major change (introducing a new technology, for example) and the few or many intangibles which must be changed to exploit the technology.

Governments clearly have a role to play here.

Governments perhaps do not directly innovate … but the support they provide can make the difference to the success is a new innovation in improving national productivity.