Innovation Measurement Debated By Commerce Advisory Committee
Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez’s advisory committee to study ways to better understand the impact of innovation on the economy held its second meeting on September 12 in Washington DC and began the process of recommending an action agenda for publication this fall. The committee, chaired by Carl Schramm, president of the Kauffman Foundation, distilled more than 60 ideas developed over the past six months into 13 discussed at the meeting.
LINK: Download discusson_draft_of_recommendations_sept_12_2007.pdf
SUMMARY OF DRAFT RECOMMENDATIONS
INNOVATION DATA COLLECTION
· Improvements in service sector data
· Improvement in measurement of intangibles (including intellectual property)
· Leverage understanding of innovation through expanded sharing of and access to existing data in firms
STRUCTURE OF THE NATONAL INCOME AND PRODUCT ACCOUNTS
· Development of annual, industry-level measures of total factor productivity
· Creation of a national innovation account by BEA as a satellite account
· Publish economic data based on data on firms as well as establishments to provide more meaningful estimate of employment in innovation occupations
NEW INNOVATION OUTCOME MEASURES
· Development of a firm level measure of innovation intensity such as the ratio of annual revenue from products launched in the last three years to total annual revenue
· Development of a market share based measures
· Development of a national index of innovation aggregating different measures
INNOVATION RESEARCH
· Assessment of the effect of collaboration and partnerships on innovation
· Analysis of administrative records and survey data to identify entrepreneurial start-ups and study their early life cycle
· Easier access to and analysis of publicly available firm data
· Identification of drivers of and impediments to innovation
Advisory Committee Members Attending Second Meeting
BUSINESS LEADERS:
David L. Bernd, CEO, Sentara Healthcare, Norfolk, Va.
James Blanchard, Retired Chairman of the Board and CEO, Synovus Financial Corp, Columbus, Ga.
Art Collins, Chairman and CEO, Medtronic, Minneapolis, Minn.
Luther Hodges, Jr., owner-manager of Santa Fe Hospitality and the Hotel Santa Fe, as well as investment partnerships, Chapel Hill, N.C.
Carl Schramm, Ph.D., President and CEO, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Kansas City, Mo.
ACADEMIC LEADERS:
Ashish Arora, Ph.D., Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Rajesh Chandy, Ph.D., Carlson School Professor of Marketing, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn.
Kathleen B. Cooper, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Tower Center for Political Studies, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Tx.
Dale W. Jorgenson, Ph.D., Professor of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Donald Siegel, Ph.D., Professor and Associate Dean, Graduate School of Management, University of California at Riverside, Riverside, Calif.
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