Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy

“Haskel and Westlake argue that, as intangible capital has come to drive modern economies, it has generated unintended consequences that our institutions are ill-equipped to solve. How do we build deep and liquid capital markets for intangibles-intensive businesses? How can we reform IP laws and rebuild state capacity? This impressive book offers targeted insights that can help us meet these and other challenges.”—Carol Corrado, The Conference Board

“After a decade of rising inequality, disappointing economic growth, and political turmoil, how can we restart the future? In this important and timely book, Haskel and Westlake argue that old institutions are inapt for the new intangible economy. To fix our social and economic ills, we must fix our institutions. It is a powerful and convincing message that everyone should read!”—Carl Benedikt Frey, author of The Technology Trap

“How does the concept of intangible capital help explain some features of what has gone wrong in our world? How is the concept of intangible capital key to fixing what has gone wrong and improving our world? This is the go-to book for those and other critical questions for boosting economic growth.”—Tyler Cowen, author of The Great Stagnation

“What explains the sense of malaise afflicting the twenty-first-century economy? Restarting the Future identifies the fundamental problem as a failure of economic institutions and policies to keep pace with the shift toward intangibles. Ideas drive prosperity, and this important book identifies the ways government policies need to adapt to the economy of ideas in areas ranging from setting interest rates to competition policy.”—Diane Coyle, University of Cambridge