Recently, I read an article entitled “Innovation Nation” by Robert Atkinson. It can be located at www.democracyjournal.org/innovation-nation Atkinson talks about the difference between neo classical economics and Innovation Economics. 
The article claims that neo-economics view of the world is dead. What seemed to be an effective model since the Great Depression, actually does not well describe our global economy. Neo-classical economics tells us more employment and a free market will grow the economy. In the past decade we have seen this is not true. In addition, he states “when the private sector acting on its own can single-handedly be responsible for the losses of over $2 trillion dollars and require the federal government to save both it and the economy, the notion” of a fully free market seems out of balance.
As described by Atkinson, the theory of Innovation economics says that economic growth is derived by raising productivity and innovation in the market. This was both startling yet intuitive to me. I have always seen the need for companies to focus on growth through higher productivity and organic innovation as opposed to focusing solely top and bottom line short term growth. Thus, it would seem that individual companies and nations need to increase innovation to promulgate growth.
