By Edmund Phelps, 2006 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, McVickar Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Columbia University, and Member of SAGE’s Academic Committee

  Sep 23, 2024 — IMF Finance & Development Magazine (Opinion)
 
Why do some nations experience mass economic flourishing while others do not? Why did several Western nations—first the United Kingdom, then the United States, France, and Germany—see a remarkable period of innovation, economic growth, and human progress beginning about 1890? And why did innovation stall after about 1970?
 

My thesis, developed in my 2013 book Mass Flourishing: How Grassroots Innovation Created Jobs, Challenge, and Change and tested in its 2020 sequel, Dynamism: The Values That Drive Innovation, Job Satisfaction, and Economic Growth, is that the well-performing nations acquired higher levels of dynamism—the desire and capabilities of the nation’s people to innovate. The force behind this innovative dynamism that spurred people in large numbers to conceive innovations was the rise and spread of certain modern values: individualism, vitalism, and a desire for self-expression.

Read More: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2024/09/Point-of-view-mass-flourishing-and-economic-dynamism-edmund-phelps