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China’s coronavirus success shows it has caught up with West in some areas of innovation, Nobel laureate Paul Romer says
- Lack of success by the United States and Europe on coronavirus control shows lack of innovation mindset
- Innovation leaders could be economic leaders of this century, according to Paul Romer, co-recipient of the 2018 Nobel Prize in economics
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China’s success in combating the coronavirus is a sign that it has already caught up with the United States and other Western nations in some areas of innovation, including public health policy, according to Paul Romer, co-recipient of the 2018 Nobel Prize in economics.
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Romer warned that the West’s response to the coronavirus pandemic was evidence of a complacent mindset on innovation, particularly in public policy.
“In the response to the pandemic, part of what we saw was more effective innovation in policy responses in Asia than in Europe and the United States,” Romer told the Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong on Monday.
“If some nations lose the momentum for progress, then those [nations with the ability to truly innovate] could be leaders, perhaps the new leaders in the coming century.”
The danger in the US and in Europe was that people thought they already knew what to do. We’ll just do what we’ve always done before. And that’s the mindset that kills innovation
But Romer, an economics professor at New York University, also warned China that the road ahead would be difficult.
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