Power and Progress – The Role of the State in Technological Change
20/December/2023
4 pm CET
PLACE
Zoom
LANGUAGE
English
For a long time, it was assumed that technological progress under free competition would automatically lead to greater prosperity. In their new book “Power and Progress”, Simon Johnson and Daron Acemoglu describe how this is not necessarily the case. Progress has often only benefited the few – and is much more dependent on politics than market-liberal thinkers claim.
We invited MIT economist Simon Johnson to discuss the extent to which the state should steer innovation with ZEW President Achim Wambach at our next New Economy Short Cut2 in collaboration with the OECD Berlin Centre.
Simon Johnson
is the Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management. From 2007 to 2008, he was Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund. Johnson is the author of several books, including "Power and Progress: Our 1000-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity", co-authored with Daron Acemoglu.
Achim Wambach
has been President of ZEW and Professor of Economics at the University of Mannheim since April 2016. Among other things, he is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection, which he chaired from 2012-2015. He was a member of the Monopolies Commission from 2014 to June 2022.