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The World’s Most Innovative Economies
- kidsil 10y agoCould the ranking of a country like Switzerland be heavily impacted by Pharmaceutical companies registered there and filling patents there? How many of those innovations are actually tangible in each of those countries and how many are just technicalities? Not to discredit the ranking, I'm actually curious about the balance.
- joelthelion 10y ago> South Korea remained the big winner, topping the international charts in R&D intensity, value-added manufacturing and patent activity and with top-five rankings in high-tech density, higher education and researcher concentration None of these are really all that relevant to true innovation. As a European, it's clear to me that no country comes even close to the US in terms of innovation. Almost all really new technologies come out of the US.
- alkonaut 10y agoI think the key words are "density" and "concentration".
- OskarS 10y agoWhile I agree with you on the flawed metrics, I think that on a per-capita basis some of the Nordics are on par (and maybe have even surpassed) the US when it comes to tech innovation.
- fauigerzigerk 10y agoI wonder if that picture is somewhat distorted by the overwhelming dominance of reporting on every little thing that a couple of large US tech conglomerates do. That said, I tend to be skeptical of such rankings as well.
- galfarragem 10y ago> Almost all really new technologies come out of the US. I would add: Almost all really new technologies in the market come out of the US. US is the best at transforming research in $.
- JotForm 10y agoThis seems like the true approach.
- MrBuddyCasino 10y agoAnd arguably, the more valuable one. Bringing something to the masses a) which used to be expensive but is now cheap or b) which is new but affordable for most is what changes people's lives.
- golergka 10y agoOnly if you're looking at consumer-facing business. Not every startup tries to create a brand and get articles written in TechCrunch and NYT: many are just developing revolutionary tech that is later bought and used by others.
- microtheo 10y agoI think this is a bias because we only read American media and are flooded by American influence. Countries like Sweden, Switzerland have innovative universities highly ranked. A huge density of startups close to them. High technologies and services available to citizens (for example bank system, rail system, fiber to the home...). And of course a social and retirement system that gives the whole population a really high power of consumption. They are small countries that are easier to manage. But they definitely deserve their rank in my own humble opinion.
- bbctol 10y agoA lot more big picture/consumer-facing innovation comes out of the US, because that's bolstered by cultural influence, but South Korea's manufacturing innovation is insane. iPhones may be designed in America, but the components they need to function come from a series of brilliant Korean inventions.
- demonshalo 10y agoThis makes 0 sense to my heavily biased brain. As a Swede that is keeping a close eye on the domestic market, I can't find that many "innovations" taking place in most commercial sectors. R&D means quack-all if you cant translate that research into good and services that the citizens of said country can take advantage of.
- hkjgkjy 10y agoPlease note that you seeing the usefulness and it not being useful are two different things.
- digi_owl 10y agoThats thinking in the SV VC fueled startup way, where everything has to be Facebook, Twitter, Netflix or something else directly aimed at the hindbrain of the masses.
- kalleboo 10y agoEverything is relative. How many other countries had systems like BankID, Swish, doing their taxes online as well as with Skatteverket, etc etc when those came out? how many of those countries have populations smaller than Sweden? How much innovation comes out of Ohio which has a larger population?
- big_youth 10y agoIt was not recent but a century ago Ohio came up with chewing gum, light bulbs, the first gas powered auto, flight, the, the first vacuum, and founded the first coed and interracial college. A little more innovate than online banking stuff. https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/technological-innovations-origanating-in-ohio https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/technological-innovation...
- kalleboo 10y agoI didn't mean to start some kind of innovational penis-waving contest. Just trying to show that it's easy to be blind to local innovation when it's around you. I'm not saying that no innovation is coming out of Ohio. I'm saying that the parent poster "as a Swede" probably doesn't see any innovation that comes out of Ohio. Just like an American doesn't see any innovation coming out of Sweden. Hence the "everyday" kind of examples.
- noxin 10y agoInteresting, the global competitiveness report of the WEF lists South Korea as rank 20 for innovation. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GCR2016-2017/05FullReport/TheGlobalCompetitivenessReport2016-2017_FINAL.pdf http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GCR2016-2017/05FullReport/TheGl... [PDF] page 50
- ch4ck 10y agoThe good thing about rankings is that you have many to choose from.
- wott 10y agoYes, there is always at least one where each city/country can claim the first place, so that local newspapers can make an article about how that piece of land is better than others and local political leaders can show that they achieved something.
- digi_owl 10y agoWhy to i get the impression that this has less to do with out and out innovation and more to do with the startup circus?
- xiaoma 10y agoAnd as happens all too often with these lists, they left out one of the top economies and one that would have made its top bracket—Taiwan.
- maruhan2 10y agoDensity in a country-wide scale means little in terms of technology. LIke how much more farmland and wildlife does USA have over Korea? Quite a huge amount. The comparison should really come at a similar scale. SF vs Seoul would be a better comparison.
- kartan 10y ago> Fresh ideas tend to pay off big in Sweden, even as the current government is less business-friendly and has imposed labor taxes that could crimp business investment Maybe it is that high taxes and citizen friendly social system the responsible for the success of the country. I moved to Sweden to work in the tech sector because I like how socially advanced is the country. Taxes are used to invest in society, and that's how you get a competitive environment. If you don't invest in your citizens how do you expect to grow? I really proud of paying taxes in Sweden and help society with my fair share of the cost. :)
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- aaron-lebo 10y agoI think it's very much a cultural thing. Much of the social system in the US is informal. For example in the American South, things like the Salvation Army are huge and lots of small churches have homeless programs, food drives, and facilities that push for employment skills. Of course that ties a lot of dogma into social help, but it's there. Sweden, having a much smaller government with fewer conflicting factions is able to have more efficient government. The average American who supports these other social systems doesn't trust that the government can do an effective job of providing them (and maybe for good reason). I very much agree with you, but that informal/formal distinction is important.
- geon 10y ago> Sweden, having a much smaller government with fewer conflicting factions Lol. In contrast to the US, Sweden has a somewhat functioning democracy with more than 2 mainstream parties.
- vidarh 10y agoBut I think Sweden, and the rest of Scandinavia (I'm Norwegian) has a less adversarial political system. We're used to coalitions, so most political parties are careful not to burn bridges totally. We also often have broad negotiated compromises where the US is more likely to have bitterly fought battles leading to a small majority where the losers ends up trying hard to reverse the decision afterwards (witness the Affordable Care Act debacle). E.g. when the immigration crisis hit all the parties in parliament in Norway other than the Progress Party (furthest right wing populists in parliament) negotiated a joint agreement, rather than wrangling until someone managed to get just a 5x% majority for their plan. As a result a lot of decisions end up being a lot less controversial than one might think, and remain more stable, as few substantial decisions rest on a minor parliamentary majority.
- kahrkunne 10y agoSouth Korea just steals and takes credit for everything Japan makes. They're like China, but they get away with it better.
- OskarS 10y ago>The Swedes themselves promote an atmosphere of great personal ambition — unlike some European neighbors that emphasize the collective — and that’s a boon to innovation, he said. >“In the culture, people are super individualistic — this means that people have ideas and are very interested in pursuing them in this way in order to become wealthy,” said Henrekson. This is very true, and a thing which is often misunderstood about the Swedish mindset. The sterotype of Swedes is frequently that we're a bunch of socialists who all believe that everyone should work for the collective good. That's totally wrong. Sweden is perhaps one of the most individualistic countries in the world: we value the individual over the family or community, and we believe that everyone should have the same opportunities regardless of the circumstances of their birth. This is the reason we have the social safety net we have: it is a substitute for family and community and other more traditional support systems.
- aaron-lebo 10y agoYes! If the government can provide effective healthcare that should at least in theory be a great boon to social mobility and entrepreneurship as that means people can much more easily move to a new job. Tying healthcare to employers is antithetical to that. I suspect the real issue doing that in the US is simply because it's so varied. You've got several individual demographics within America that are bigger than Sweden's entire population - all with different cultures and even histories. Having a more homogeneous culture is advantageous in that respect. Maybe it's not surprising that SK has seen similar results.
- OskarS 10y agoToday, Sweden is much more diverse that most people from other countries imagine (the percentage of the population that is born in foreign countries is higher in Sweden than the US, for instance). A walk down any street in Stockholm would disabuse you of the notion that there is no diversity here. However, it is fair to say that when the system was "designed", (largely in the early and mid 20th century), Sweden was much more ethnically homogeneous than it is today. There might be something to the notion that people are much more willing to accept a generous welfare state if they know the beneficiaries are from the same ethnic group. It's shameful, but that's humanity for you.
- ihaveahadron 10y agoWhat a shock about SK. I thought the US was more innovative. HAHAHA did I really just write that.
- kriro 10y agoI wonder how they measure patent activity given the vastly different patent systems. Software patents being the most obvious example. Is a country penalized for being "less active" if there are no software patents in that country (the explanation in the footnotes has me believe the answer would be yes)? I'm also skeptical of the weights that were used (equal weights). My instinct (as a non-US citizen) would be that the #1 spot in high tech of the US is worth a lot more than other categories (and the gap to #2 is probably also substantial). I'm fairly surprised that the U.S. is only #10 in R&D intensity. I'd like to see some correlation to some education rankings (+imported workers) as well, could be interesting.
- nkoren 10y agoI wonder: what's the point of a ranking like this? It's got China wedged between Canada and Poland. On the one hand, on average this is probably correct: there are vast swathes of inland China that are undoubtedly quite stultifying and wouldn't rank highly on any "innovation" metric. On the hand, if you're interested in this kind of innovation, then what does rural China have to do with anything? The innovations happening in Shanghai and Beijing and Shenzhen and Chengdu are very innovative indeed, and ought to rank near the top of any global list. Certainly much higher than anything you could find in Poland or Canada (meaning no disrespect). I'd suggest that it's problematic for a ranking like this to even be based on countries. Countries, per se, don't produce innovation: urban economies do. A ranking of innovative cities would be a much more interesting and realistic metric.
- jackcosgrove 10y ago> I wonder: what's the point of a ranking like this? To drive mouse clicks by stoking nationalist sentiment and feelings of superiority. > A ranking of innovative cities would be a much more interesting and realistic metric. I agree. The chauvinism would still be present and is inevitable when making comparisons between locales, but at least the locales would make sense as economic units.
- novaleaf 10y agoFrench Guiana is colored around 15th place in the map, but isn't listed at all in the top 50 list. I wonder what happened there.
- Symmetry 10y agoIt's part of France and so it would make sense to give it the same color as the rest of France. But on the other hand the don't color Greenland as part of Denmark, so who knows.
- chrshawkes 10y agoLogic is bogus everybody knows the USA is the most innovative country by far.
- dba7dba 10y agoLooking at the ranking, I am flabbergasted South Korea is picked #1. South Korea getting picked even in top 20 would've been shocking. But #1? Let's consider some of the odds that were in the way. 1. no modern education or social institutions were in South Korea until early 1900s. The Korean peninsula of 1900 was little different from 500 years ago, when the Chosun Dynasty was formed. 2. What little gain made during the Japanese occupation (1910-1945) was razed during the Korean War. 3. the country faced a massive refugee crisis during the Korean War. Granted Syrian and other current refugee crises are tragic, but the Korean refugee crisis was just as bad, if not worse. Cold winter than can freeze you to death. No overland escape route for South Koreans. 4. no natural resources like oil to sell 5. massive military expenditure commitment, including 2-3 year military service every young male has to go through. And yet they kept at it and moved up the list.
- woodandsteel 10y agoThe article says Russia was 26th this year, down from 12th last. I am very surprised it was so high before. There is a ton of innovation going on in recent years, like renewable energy, AI, nanotechnology, and so on, but almost none of it seems to be coming out of Russia. Certainly not what you would expect from a large industrialized nation with an educated public.