Howard Wial

In reference to ITIF’s call for a National Innovation Foundation ITIF president Rob Atkinson and Howard Wial of the Brookings Institute answer seven frequently asked questions about the creation of a National Innovation Foundation.

Without a more robust, targeted, and explicit federal innovation policy, U.S. competitiveness will continue to slip and economic growth will lag.

In a coauthored report with The Brookings Institution, Robert Atkinson and Howard Wial analyze the projected impact of service sector offshoring on U.S. metropolitan economies. While the report finds that the impacts of offshoring in most metropolitan areas over the next decade are likely to be modest, it forecasts higher than average job losses in twenty-eight U.S. metropolitan areas between 2004 and 2015. To address the impacts, the paper urges federal, state, and local leaders to pursue together policies that boost productivity and innovation, assist workers who are harmed by offshoring, and modernize approaches to economic and workforce development.

Join ITIF as we release a comprehensive report that reveals the truth about the troubling state of U.S. manufacturing.

The United States is losing ground quickly in the innovation sweepstakes to Japan, Denmark and other nations. There’s nothing mysterious about why: These and other nations have designed and funded federal policies to spur innovation, and we have not.

On April 22, 2008, from 8:30 – 10:00 a.m. ITIF, MPP and the Council on Competitiveness will host an innovation briefing. The event will preview two major new reports on federal economic policy: “Boosting Productivity, Innovation, and Growth Through a National Innovation Foundation,” by ITIF President Robert Atkinson and Howard Wial, a Brookings economist; and “Clusters for Competitiveness: A New Federal Role for Stimulating Regional Economies,” by venture capitalist Karen Mills; Liz Reynolds, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology doctoral student; and Andrew Reamer, a Fellow at Brookings.