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你是否曾經自問,為何那些公司、很酷的公司,那些創新、充滿創意的新經濟型公司-Apple、Google、Facebook-都來自同一個國家-美國。通常當我這麼說時,有人會說,「Spotify!那是歐洲公司。」確實,但它不像之前那些公司那麼有影響力。
我是一位經濟學家,事實上我研究的是在公司、產業和國家層面上,創新和經濟成長之間的關係。我與世界各國的政策制定者合作,尤其是歐盟委員會,但最近也前往一些有趣的地方,例如中國。我可以告訴各位,他們都問過這個問題:歐洲的Google在哪裡?矽谷成長模式背後的秘密是什麼?他們的觀點與舊型經濟成長模式有何不同?有趣的是,一般來說,即使我們身處21世紀,依然不免得出市場對抗國家的結論,這被視為現代市場運作的方式。但矽谷等地的觀點、其中秘密在於不同類型的市場運作機制、民間融資提案,無論它是否屬於動態風險投資範疇。這些創新公司事實上都能獲得高風險融資,即一般所謂的「羚羊企業」-傳統銀行避之唯恐不及的公司;或不同類型、頗具成效的商業化政策,事實上允許這些公司將他們傑出的發明和產品推向市場,安然度過導致許多公司一敗塗地的可怕「死亡谷」時期。
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以下為系統擷取之英文原文
Have you ever asked yourselves why it is that companies, the really cool companies, the innovative ones, the creative, new economy-type companies -- Apple, Google, Facebook -- are coming out of one particular country, the United States of America? Usually when I say this, someone says, "Spotify! That's Europe." But, yeah. It has not had the impact that these other companies have had.
Now what I do is I'm an economist, and I actually study the relationship between innovation and economic growth at the level of the company, the industry and the nation, and I work with policymakers worldwide, especially in the European Commission, but recently also in interesting places like China, and I can tell you that that question is on the tip of all of their tongues: Where are the European Googles? What is the secret behind the Silicon Valley growth model, which they understand is different from this old economy growth model? And what is interesting is that often, even if we're in the 21st century, we kind of come down in the end to these ideas of market versus state. It's talked about in these modern ways, but the idea is that somehow, behind places like Silicon Valley, the secret have been different types of market-making mechanisms, the private initiative, whether this be about a dynamic venture capital sector that's actually able to provide that high-risk finance to these innovative companies, the gazelles as we often call them, which traditional banks are scared of, or different types of really successful commercialization policies which actually allow these companies to bring these great inventions, their products, to the market and actually get over this really scary Death Valley period in which many companies instead fail.
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但真正讓我感興趣的,尤其是目前-因為全球政策使然-我感興趣的是其中通用的語言、敘述、用語、圖像和精確詞彙。因此我們經常聽見諸如私營部門之類的詞彙-通常代表更有創意,因為它能跳脫框架、更具變動性。想想2005年史蒂夫.賈伯斯獻給史丹佛畢業生那場激動人心的演講,他說:擁有創新精神,你必須求知若飢、虛懷若愚,對嗎?因此這些人大多是飢渴、傻氣、多樣化的傢伙,對嗎?在歐洲這樣的地方或許更平等,甚至比美國人穿得更講究、吃得更好,但問題在於惱人的公共部門,它太過龐大,根本無法讓動態風險資本及商業化等方案真正發揮應有的成效。甚至備受推崇的報紙-有些我也訂閱了-你知道,他們把美國形容成「利維坦」,對嗎?擁有巨大觸腳的怪獸,他們十分明確地寫在社論裡。他們說:「你知道,美國必須修復這些小小的市場失靈,當你擁有公眾利益,或不同型態的負面外在因素,例如污染時。」但你知道嗎?網路後的下一場大革命會是什麼?我們都希望是綠色革命或奈米技術相關革命。「為了使這一切成為可能,」他們說-這是關於下一場工業革命的特殊議題-他們說:「國家只需致力於基礎建設,對嗎?資助基礎設施、資助學校,甚至資助基礎研究,因為這是一般共識。事實上私營公司不願投資大型公共設施,國家應善盡職責。但知道嗎?把其餘部份留給革新者。」那些充滿創意、天馬行空的思想家。他們通常被稱為車庫發明家,因為其中有些人確實在車庫中進行創作,這些事蹟甚至成了神話的一部分。因此我想和你們談論的是-天哪,只剩10分鐘-再次思考兩者並行的可能性,因為這確實具有極大影響力,超越某些創新政策,這正是我經常與決策者討論的領域。它擁有巨大影響力,甚至擴及整個概念-我們該於何時、何地及為何削減公共開支和不同類型的公共服務。當然,如我們所知,因為這種並行性,外包情形與日俱增,對嗎?我是指,我們需要自主學校或特許學校的原因在於增加學生的創新性,而非在制式課程壓迫下扼殺了潛力。因此這類詞彙層出不窮,這種並行性無所不在,不僅與創新政策有關。
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But what really interests me, especially nowadays and because of what's happening politically around the world, is the language that's used, the narrative, the discourse, the images, the actual words. So we often are presented with the kind of words like that the private sector is also much more innovative because it's able to think out of the box. They are more dynamic. Think of Steve Jobs' really inspirational speech to the 2005 graduating class at Stanford, where he said to be innovative, you've got to stay hungry, stay foolish. Right? So these guys are kind of the hungry and foolish and colorful guys, right? And in places like Europe, it might be more equitable, we might even be a bit better dressed and eat better than the U.S., but the problem is this damn public sector. It's a bit too big, and it hasn't actually allowed these things like dynamic venture capital and commercialization to actually be able to really be as fruitful as it could. And even really respectable newspapers, some that I'm actually subscribed to, the words they use are, you know, the state as this Leviathan. Right? This monster with big tentacles. They're very explicit in these editorials. They say, "You know, the state, it's necessary to fix these little market failures when you have public goods or different types of negative externalities like pollution, but you know what, what is the next big revolution going to be after the Internet? We all hope it might be something green, or all of this nanotech stuff, and in order for that stuff to happen," they say -- this was a special issue on the next industrial revolution -- they say, "the state, just stick to the basics, right? Fund the infrastructure. Fund the schools. Even fund the basic research, because this is popularly recognized, in fact, as a big public good which private companies don't want to invest in, do that, but you know what? Leave the rest to the revolutionaries." Those colorful, out-of-the-box kind of thinkers. They're often called garage tinkerers, because some of them actually did some things in garages, even though that's partly a myth. And so what I want to do with you in, oh God, only 10 minutes, is to really think again this juxtaposition, because it actually has massive, massive implications beyond innovation policy, which just happens to be the area that I often talk with with policymakers. It has huge implications, even with this whole notion that we have on where, when and why we should actually be cutting back on public spending and different types of public services which, of course, as we know, are increasingly being outsourced because of this juxtaposition. Right? I mean, the reason that we need to maybe have free schools or charter schools is in order to make them more innovative without being emburdened by this heavy hand of the state curriculum, or something. So these kind of words are constantly, these juxtapositions come up everywhere, not just with innovation policy.
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因此不妨再次思考-你們不需要相信我,只要想想你口袋裡最先進的革新產品。別開機,但不妨拿出你的iPhone,詢問資助iPhone中那些超酷、革命性、突破性技術的是誰。基本上,真正使你的電話成為智慧手機、而非傻瓜手機的是什麼?因此網路讓你在世上任何地方瀏覽網頁;GPS讓你確知自己位於世上哪個地方;觸控螢幕讓它成為任何人都能輕鬆操作的手機。iPhone中這些十分巧妙、革新性部分全由政府資助,也就是說,網際網路由美國國防部DARPA(先進研究計畫署)資助;GPS由軍方Navstar(導航之星)計畫資助;甚至Siri,事實上由DARPA資助;觸控螢幕由兩個國家部門-CIA(中情局)和NSF(國家科學基金會)-資助德拉瓦大學兩位公立大學研究員。你或許會想,「好吧,她只是提了好幾次『國防』、『軍事』之類的。」但有趣的是,這確實來自各個國家單位和部門不斷提供的資助。因此我個人對製藥工業十分感興趣,因為我有幸對這個產業進行深入研究。一個有趣的問題是,關於革新型和非革新型藥物的差異。因為每種藥物事實上可分為革新型或改進型,因此具有優先評級的新分子實體屬於革新型藥物,而對現有藥物進行細微改進-例如威而鋼,改變顏色、劑量-則屬於非革新型藥物。結果是,75%具有優先評級的新分子實體事實上由古板的Kafkian公共部門實驗室資助。這並非意味著大型製藥公司不願投資創新,他們確實這麼做;他們投資市場行銷部分,投資R&D(研究與開發)的D部分(開發);他們花大筆資金購回自己的股票。這十分冒險,事實上,例如輝瑞和安進等公司,最近花在購回股票以提高股價的錢,遠勝於投入R&D的資金。但這是完全不同的TED演講主題,有機會我很樂意與大家分享。
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And so to think again, there's no reason that you should believe me, so just think of some of the smartest revolutionary things that you have in your pockets and do not turn it on, but you might want to take it out, your iPhone. Ask who actually funded the really cool, revolutionary thinking-out-of-the-box things in the iPhone. What actually makes your phone a smartphone, basically, instead of a stupid phone? So the Internet, which you can surf the web anywhere you are in the world; GPS, where you can actually know where you are anywhere in the world; the touchscreen display, which makes it also a really easy-to-use phone for anybody. These are the very smart, revolutionary bits about the iPhone, and they're all government-funded. And the point is that the Internet was funded by DARPA, U.S. Department of Defense. GPS was funded by the military's Navstar program. Even Siri was actually funded by DARPA. The touchscreen display was funded by two public grants by the CIA and the NSF to two public university researchers at the University of Delaware. Now, you might be thinking, "Well, she's just said the word 'defense' and 'military' an awful lot," but what's really interesting is that this is actually true in sector after sector and department after department. So the pharmaceutical industry, which I am personally very interested in because I've actually had the fortune to study it in quite some depth, is wonderful to be asking this question about the revolutionary versus non-revolutionary bits, because each and every medicine can actually be divided up on whether it really is revolutionary or incremental. So the new molecular entities with priority rating are the revolutionary new drugs, whereas the slight variations of existing drugs -- Viagra, different color, different dosage -- are the less revolutionary ones. And it turns out that a full 75 percent of the new molecular entities with priority rating are actually funded in boring, Kafkian public sector labs. This doesn't mean that Big Pharma is not spending on innovation. They do. They spend on the marketing part. They spend on the D part of R&D. They spend an awful lot on buying back their stock, which is quite problematic. In fact, companies like Pfizer and Amgen recently have spent more money in buying back their shares to boost their stock price than on R&D, but that's a whole different TED Talk which one day I'd be fascinated to tell you about.
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現在,在所有例子中,最令人感興趣的是,美國所做的遠勝於單純修復市場失靈;事實上它正在塑造及創造市場。它不僅資助基本研究-這同樣是典型的公共利益-甚至資助應用研究;它甚至-但願不會-成了風險資本家。因此這些SBIR和SDTR(小型企業創新研發計畫)提供小型公司早期財務支援,或許它的重要性比不上私人風險資本,但也變得越來越重要。為什麼?因為-如許多人所知-V.C.(風險投資)事實上是相當短期的行為,他們希望在三至五年內得到回報;創新所需時間遠勝於此,約15至20年。因此整體概念-我是指,這就是重點,對嗎?真正資助棘手研發項目的是誰?當然,不僅是國家,私營部門也出力不少,但根據一般認知,國家對基礎建設十分重要,但似乎不支援高風險、革命性創意事業。所有資助網際網路的部門,除了負擔開銷,也提供預想、規劃階段的資助,這些資金事實上都來自國家。奈米科技部門十分醉心於這項研究,因為奈米科技這個詞彙本身就是由政府部門命名。
因此這具有極大影響力。首先,當然,我並非那種認為市場對抗國家的守舊派。我們都知道,在動態資本主義中,我們確實需要「公共-私人」的夥伴關係。但問題是,政府部門通常被描述成必要的存在,但事實上-噗-有點死板,或通常是有危險性的利維坦。我認為我們確實阻礙了以動態方式建立「公共-私人」夥伴關係的可能性。甚至通常用來批判「P」部份,公共部份的詞彙-好吧,兩個都是P開頭-「公共-私人」的夥伴關係在於去風險化。在我舉的所有例子中,公共部門的作用-這是我和其他同事關注的重點-不僅是去風險化,多少也承擔風險,勇往直前;事實上這正是創新思維的一部分。此外,我確定你們都有與地方級、區域級和國家級政府打交道的經驗。你或許會說,「知道嗎,我遇過那個Kafkian官僚。」整體並行關係多少存在。好,有個自我實現的預言,描述國家跟不上潮流、死板,有時事實上是我們自己造就了這樣的機構。因此我們必須做的是建立創業型國家機構,資助網際網路和Siri的DARPA確實盡心思考這一點:如何迎接失敗?因為失敗在所難免。創新過程中,失敗在所難免,十次實驗或許僅能成功一次;風險投資家明白這一點,他們願意為其他失敗者提供資金。
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Now, what's interesting in all of this is the state, in all these examples, was doing so much more than just fixing market failures. It was actually shaping and creating markets. It was funding not only the basic research, which again is a typical public good, but even the applied research. It was even, God forbid, being a venture capitalist. So these SBIR and SDTR programs, which give small companies early-stage finance have not only been extremely important compared to private venture capital, but also have become increasingly important. Why? Because, as many of us know, V.C. is actually quite short-term. They want their returns in three to five years. Innovation takes a much longer time than that, 15 to 20 years. And so this whole notion -- I mean, this is the point, right? Who's actually funding the hard stuff? Of course, it's not just the state. The private sector does a lot. But the narrative that we've always been told is the state is important for the basics, but not really providing that sort of high-risk, revolutionary thinking out of the box. In all these sectors, from funding the Internet to doing the spending, but also the envisioning, the strategic vision, for these investments, it was actually coming within the state. The nanotechnology sector is actually fascinating to study this, because the word itself, nanotechnology, came from within government.
And so there's huge implications of this. First of all, of course I'm not someone, this old-fashioned person, market versus state. What we all know in dynamic capitalism is that what we actually need are public-private partnerships. But the point is, by constantly depicting the state part as necessary but actually -- pffff -- a bit boring and often a bit dangerous kind of Leviathan, I think we've actually really stunted the possibility to build these public-private partnerships in a really dynamic way. Even the words that we often use to justify the "P" part, the public part -- well, they're both P's -- with public-private partnerships is in terms of de-risking. What the public sector did in all these examples I just gave you, and there's many more, which myself and other colleagues have been looking at, is doing much more than de-risking. It's kind of been taking on that risk. Bring it on. It's actually been the one thinking out of the box. But also, I'm sure you all have had experience with local, regional, national governments, and you're kind of like, "You know what, that Kafkian bureaucrat, I've met him." That whole juxtaposition thing, it's kind of there. Well, there's a self-fulfilling prophecy. By talking about the state as kind of irrelevant, boring, it's sometimes that we actually create those organizations in that way. So what we have to actually do is build these entrepreneurial state organizations. DARPA, that funded the Internet and Siri, actually thought really hard about this, how to welcome failure, because you will fail. You will fail when you innovative. One out of 10 experiments has any success. And the V.C. guys know this, and they're able to actually fund the other losses from that one success.
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這對我來說意義深遠,這個意義遠勝於創新的影響。如果國家不僅是市場修復者,如果它真正的角色是市場塑造者;這麼做需要擔負極大風險。回報是什麼?我們都知道,如果你上過金融課,所學的第一課多半是風險與回報的關係。因此有些人愚蠢至極,或者說聰明至極;如果他們耐心等待、進行股票投資,因為風險較高,因此長期下來獲益將比債券更高,這就是風險與回報的關係。好,政府擔負如此大的風險,回報在哪裡?竟笨到插手網際網路?網路瘋狂至極,確實如此。我是指,失敗機率相當大,你必定是笨透頂才會這麼做。幸運的是,他們確實如此。好,我們還沒談到回報的問題,除非你把政府描繪成冒險家;問題在於經濟學家往往認為國家當然獲得回報,那就是稅收。你知道,公司會繳稅,他們創造的就業機會將創造經濟成長,因此人們得到工作,收入增加,然後藉由賦稅機制回歸國庫。好,遺憾的是,事實並非如此。是的,事實並非如此,因為他們創造的許多就業機會在國外。全球化使然,這無所謂,我們不該侷限於國家主義,或許就讓它順其自然;我是指,總得有人擔任這個職務。但這些公司確實從國家得到巨大利益,Apple是很好的例子,他們甚至是第一個-好吧,也許不是第一個-但Apple確實藉由SBIC計畫獲得50萬美元的資助,這是早於SBIR的計畫。此外,我之前提過,還有iPhone背後所有的技術支援。然而,我們知道,在法律上,它和其他公司一樣,只需繳交極低的賦稅。
因此我們確實需要重新思考的是,或許應該建立預期報酬機制,比賦稅更加直接。為什麼不?或許可藉由持有產權的方式。順帶一提,有些國家確實正在考慮這個策略,例如斯堪地那維亞的芬蘭,還有中國和巴西。政府持有這些投資的產權;Sitra-它是芬蘭一家公共投資機構-資助Nokia,持有產權,大賺一筆,之後又給予Nokia第二輪融資。巴西開發銀行目前提供大量資金,開發潔淨科技;他們剛剛宣佈未來將投資560億在這項計畫上,並持有投資產權。因此說得煽動些,美國政府是否考慮過,也許從所謂的「創新基金」得到回饋;你可以賭賭看。知道嗎,如果僅0.5%來自網路的收益回饋給創新基金,就有更多錢投資目前的綠色科技。然而,理論上,許多州預算都試著這麼做,但資金有限。但或許更重要的是,我們之前聽過1%、99%之類的。如果政府以更具策略性的方式思考,成為價值創造機制的主導者之一,因為這就是我們討論的重點,對嗎?誰是創造經濟價值的王牌球員?國家的角色是否成了候補球員?如果我們確實擁有更廣義的價值創造理論,使我們允許政府進行投資,獲取回報,也許就在下一輪革命中。我希望我們都期待下一場大變革是綠色革命,那個時期的經濟成長不僅以智慧、創新主導;不僅是綠色革命,也更兼容並蓄;這樣矽谷等地的公立學校就確實能從經濟成長中受益,因為他們尚未擁有這份幸運。
謝謝。
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And this brings me, actually, probably, to the biggest implication, and this has huge implications beyond innovation. If the state is more than just a market fixer, if it actually is a market shaper, and in doing that has had to take on this massive risk, what happened to the reward? We all know, if you've ever taken a finance course, the first thing you're taught is sort of the risk-reward relationship, and so some people are foolish enough or probably smart enough if they have time to wait, to actually invest in stocks, because they're higher risk which over time will make a greater reward than bonds, that whole risk-reward thing. Well, where's the reward for the state of having taken on these massive risks and actually been foolish enough to have done the Internet? The Internet was crazy. It really was. I mean, the probability of failure was massive. You had to be completely nuts to do it, and luckily, they were. Now, we don't even get to this question about rewards unless you actually depict the state as this risk-taker. And the problem is that economists often think, well, there is a reward back to the state. It's tax. You know, the companies will pay tax, the jobs they create will create growth so people who get those jobs and their incomes rise will come back to the state through the tax mechanism. Well, unfortunately, that's not true. Okay, it's not true because many of the jobs that are created go abroad. Globalization, and that's fine. We shouldn't be nationalistic. Let the jobs go where they have to go, perhaps. I mean, one can take a position on that. But also these companies that have actually had this massive benefit from the state -- Apple's a great example. They even got the first -- well, not the first, but 500,000 dollars actually went to Apple, the company, through this SBIC program, which predated the SBIR program, as well as, as I said before, all the technologies behind the iPhone. And yet we know they legally, as many other companies, pay very little tax back.
So what we really need to actually rethink is should there perhaps be a return-generating mechanism that's much more direct than tax. Why not? It could happen perhaps through equity. This, by the way, in the countries that are actually thinking about this strategically, countries like Finland in Scandinavia, but also in China and Brazil, they're retaining equity in these investments. Sitra funded Nokia, kept equity, made a lot of money, it's a public funding agency in Finland, which then funded the next round of Nokias. The Brazilian Development Bank, which is providing huge amounts of funds today to clean technology, they just announced a 56 billion program for the future on this, is retaining equity in these investments. So to put it provocatively, had the U.S. government thought about this, and maybe just brought back just something called an innovation fund, you can bet that, you know, if even just .05 percent of the profits from what the Internet produced had come back to that innovation fund, there would be so much more money to spend today on green technology. Instead, many of the state budgets which in theory are trying to do that are being constrained. But perhaps even more important, we heard before about the one percent, the 99 percent. If the state is thought about in this more strategic way, as one of the lead players in the value creation mechanism, because that's what we're talking about, right? Who are the different players in creating value in the economy, and is the state's role, has it been sort of dismissed as being a backseat player? If we can actually have a broader theory of value creation and allow us to actually admit what the state has been doing and reap something back, it might just be that in the next round, and I hope that we all hope that the next big revolution will in fact be green, that that period of growth will not only be smart, innovation-led, not only green, but also more inclusive, so that the public schools in places like Silicon Valley can actually also benefit from that growth, because they have not.
Thank you.