Restarting the future: how to fix the intangible economy

9 November 2022

1:00pm-2:00pm

Summary

The past two decades have witnessed sluggish economic growth, mounting inequality, dysfunctional competition, and a host of other ills that have left people wondering what has happened to the future they were promised. In this talk, Jonathan Haskel reveals how these problems arise from a failure to develop the institutions demanded by an economy now reliant on intangible capital such as ideas, relationships, brands, and knowledge.

In their book, Restarting the Future, Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake argue that the great economic disappointment of the century is the result of an incomplete transition from an economy based on physical capital, and show how the vital institutions that underpin our economy remain geared to an outmoded way of doing business. Haskel and Westlake present exciting new ideas to help us catch up with the intangible revolution, offering a road map for how to finance businesses, improve our cities, fund more science and research, reform monetary policy, and reshape intellectual property rules for the better.

Bio

Jonathan Haskel is Professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School, Imperial College London and an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee at the bank of England.

He was previously Professor and Head of Department at the Department of Economics, Queen Mary, University of London. He has taught at the University of Bristol and London Business School and been a visiting professor at the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College, USA; Stern School of Business, New York University, USA; and visiting researcher at the Australian National University.

Since 1 February 2016, he has been a non-Executive Director of the UK Statistics Authority.

Between 2001 and 2010 Jonathan was a Member, Reporting Panel of the Competition Commission (now the Competition and Markets Authority). He worked on market enquiries into mobile phones, home credit, and airports, and the EMAP/ABI merger.

He has been on the editorial boards of Economica, Journal of Industrial Economics and Economic Policy. His research interests are productivity, innovation, intangible investment and growth. He is the author, with Stian Westlake, of Capitalism Without Capital, Princeton University Press.

He obtained his BSc at University of Bristol and PhD at the London School of Economics.

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