The Start-Up State

Abstract

Unless productivity improves, public services will become unaffordable for future generations. We can’t solve this just by throwing more money at the problem. However, there is nothing fundamentally different about the public sector preventing it from taking advantage of technology or competition. The history of technology suggests that, while large bureaucracies can create new ideas, you need markets to take them to scale. We need to increase experimentation and the rewards experimentations bring. At the same time, we should free up our university system to accelerate the basic research innovation depends upon.