MEDIA
To fix Canada’s economic problems we need real strategy
We don’t need no education: How Canada’s broken university system holds us back
How not to run a country: Government ineptitude and Canada’s economic malaise
How Canada’s middle class got shafted
Dan Breznitz
These four essays by IPL Co-Director Dan Breznitz are part of The Globe And Mail's new series, Prosperity’s Path. Successive governments have been warning about Canada’s slowing productivity for more than three decades. Now as the cost of living rises and per-capita economic output shrinks, this problem has reached an inflexion point. Dan Breznitz lays out how we got into this productivity crisis, and how we can get out.
RESEARCH
Success Story or Tall Tale: Discursive Cooperation and Economic Restructuring in Iceland
Darius Ornston, Review of International Political Economy
Political economists have long recognized the power of ideas to influence economic adjustment by shaping public policy and fostering inter-firm coordination. This article extends this argument, demonstrating how ideas can have a direct and unmediated impact on economic restructuring. More specifically, it identifies discursive cooperation, or collective storytelling, as a distinct logic of collective action, separate from policy concertation and inter-firm coordination. Examining twenty first century Iceland, this article illustrates how shared narratives accelerated the country’s movement into financial services and tourism by facilitating the diffusion of new business models and attracting external resources. Absent inter-firm coordination, policy concertation, or supportive public policies, however, stakeholders struggled to invest in public goods. Instead of incremental upmarket movement, Iceland was characterized by volatile boom-bust dynamics. In illustrating the transformative power of storytelling in small open economies, this article simultaneously highlights the perils of relying on discursive cooperation alone.
Urban governance and civic capital: analysis of an evolving concept
Jen Nelles & David A. Wolfe, Territory, Politics, Governance
This article argues that the concept of civic capital affords considerable insight into systems of urban economic development, usefully bridging gaps in both institution-centric and social capital approaches. While the concept has been applied in the literature on urban governance and economic development, its use has been fragmentary and has not seen broad engagement. This review of the state of the literature situates the concept of civic capital relative to existing literature in the field, highlights its relationship to other concepts, and reviews several qualitative approaches that apply the concept to case studies. It provides an overview of the concept and a description of the way it has developed alongside the rich literature on governance and social capital in urban development to illustrate its potential for further analytical study.
Remarks by APNSA Jake Sullivan at the Brookings Institution
The White House
In April 2023, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan outlined the U.S. international economic agenda at the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution. He outlined an industrial and innovation strategy “to build capacity, to build resilience, to build inclusiveness at home and with partners around the world.” On Wednesday, October 23, Sullivan returned to Brookings to reflect on the progress and challenges of the past 18 months and respond to the variety of responses and criticisms of his April speech. The speech addresses four challenges: the return of intense geopolitical competition; a rise in inequality and a squeeze on the middle class; a less vibrant American industrial base; an accelerating climate crisis; vulnerable supply chains; and rapid technological change. Sullivan concludes with four forward looking questions: "will we sustain the political will here at home to make the investments in our own national strength that will be required of us in the years ahead"; "will we allocate sufficient resources for investments that are needed globally"; "will we empower our agencies and develop new muscle to meet this moment?" Also see this video version of the speech followed by Q&A.
Critical materials for renewable energy: Improving data governance
International Renewable Energy Agency
This report, one of two produced in conjunction with the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, reviews initiatives aimed at improving data availability in other sectors to inform models for critical materials data management. This report highlights the importance of unified data repositories to enhance governance and decision-making in critical materials markets, emphasising how data opacity can impede renewable energy deployment. It examines major existing data sources on critical materials and reviews the key actors involved in their governance, including national government institutions, international organisations and foundations, mineral associations and commercial data providers. The report reviews initiatives aimed at improving data availability in other sectors, using them as potential models for critical materials data management. Drawing on lessons from these initiatives, it highlights the principles and content of such a database, as well as the benefits of establishing a unified data repository for critical materials to enhance data transparency, access, and quality in critical materials markets.
Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge: Tracking Metrics and Mid-2024 Dashboard
U.S. Department of Energy
The United States' Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge is the result of the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and other federal government agencies working together to develop a comprehensive strategy for scaling up new technologies to produce sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) on a commercial scale. The SAF Grand Challenge Roadmap outlines a whole-of-government approach with coordinated policies and specific activities that should be undertaken to achieve the SAF Grand Challenge goals. To track progress on achieving these goals, the following four metrics have been developed: estimated total U.S. SAF production; estimated life cycle CO2 reductions achieved with U.S. SAF production; planned production potential of SAF in the United States; applicable research, development, and deployment projects.
Government of Canada
This is a joint report submitted by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry and the Minister of Health. In June and July 2024, Canada’s three federal research funding agencies—the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)—invited community input on the Government of Canada’s vision to create a new capstone research funding organization as announced in Budget 2024.
DOE makes $3B commitment to two sustainable aviation fuel projects
Maria Gallucci, Canary Media
Alternative jet fuels are seen as key to curbing emissions from today’s airplanes. The US Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office has made conditional commitments to two companies in the Great Plains region that are working to turn crops and waste feedstocks into jet fuel. Montana Renewables, a subsidiary of the industrial manufacturer Calumet, could receive a loan guarantee of up to $1.44 billion to expand its existing renewable fuels facility in Great Falls, Montana. Colorado-based Gevo is vying for a loan guarantee of $1.46 billion to build a new jet-fuel refinery in Lake Preston, South Dakota. The facility, named Net-Zero 1, would turn corn into ethanol to produce up to 60 million gallons of SAF per year.
Strategic Approach to Battery Innovation
Natural Resources Canada, Office of Energy Research and Development
The energy system is complex and constantly changing. OERD employs “missions” to realize a clean energy future and a sustainable natural resources sector. Its main activities include funding clean energy projects and developing partnerships with stakeholders with the goals of reducing harmful emissions and supporting innovation and economic opportunities in the energy sector. Each OERD mission is comprised of energy technology focus areas. The Strategic Approach to Battery Innovation (SABI) provides a comprehensive articulation of OERD’s work in the battery innovation space for innovators from across academia, industry, and governments. The decision-making frameworks used to elaborate the SABI are shared for the benefit of other actors in Canada’s battery innovation ecosystem.
Energy Technology Perspectives 2024
International Energy Agency
The deepening connections between energy, trade, manufacturing and climate are the focus of this latest edition of Energy Technology Perspectives (ETP), the IEA’s flagship technology publication. Building on the comprehensive assessment of clean energy technology supply chains set out in ETP-2023, this year’s edition offers cutting-edge analysis based on rich and detailed new data, granular surveys of industry, and a bottom-up approach to fresh modelling. Also see a video of the IEA's summary presentation of the report here.
The sizeable economic opportunities associated with manufacturing clean energy technologies are a top priority for government and industry
The report finds that the global market value for six mass-manufactured clean energy technologies – solar PV, wind, electric vehicles (EVs), batteries, electrolysers and heat pumps – grew nearly fourfold between 2015 and 2023, when it surpassed USD 700 billion, or around half the value of all the natural gas produced globally that year. Growth has been driven by surging clean technology deployment, particularly for EVs, solar PV and wind. Under today’s policy settings, the market for these clean technologies is set to nearly triple by 2035 to more than USD 2 trillion. This is close to the average value of the global crude oil market in recent years.
Three strategic areas of public policy – energy, industry and trade – are increasingly interwoven
The energy transition presents challenging decisions for governments, which face tensions and trade-offs based on the industrial and trade policies they opt to pursue. Governments must reconcile their commitment to well-functioning markets and cost-effective clean energy transitions, on the one hand, with the need to establish secure, resilient clean technology supply chains, on the other.
A major wave of investment in manufacturing clean technologies is underway, with many new factories being built across the world
Global investment in clean technology manufacturing rose by 50% in 2023, reaching USD 235 billion. This increase is equal to nearly 10% of the growth in investment across the entire world economy. Four-fifths of the clean technology manufacturing investment in 2023 went to solar PV and battery manufacturing, with EV plants accounting for a further 15%. The amount of manufacturing capacity being added has been comfortably outpacing current deployment levels. Despite some recent cancellations and postponements of solar PV and battery manufacturing projects, investment in clean technology manufacturing facilities is set to remain close to its recent record levels, at around USD 200 billion in 2024.
Materials such as steel, aluminium and ammonia are growing in importance
Steel and aluminium are direct inputs for clean technology manufacturing, as well as for the buildings, vehicles and power plants in which such technologies are deployed. Meanwhile, ammonia is mostly used to make fertilisers, with emerging applications as a fuel in the shipping and power sectors.
Clean technology supply chains are highly dependent on trade, and will continue to be in the future
At around USD 200 billion, the value of trade in clean technologies is nearly 30% of their global market value. The biggest element is trade in electric cars – which has doubled since 2020, reaching around one-fifth of trade in all cars in 2023 in value terms – while solar PV is in second place. Under today’s policy settings, overall clean technology trade is on track to reach USD 575 billion by 2035, around 50% more than the current value of global trade in natural gas.
Cost competitiveness is an important driver of manufacturing investment, but not the only one
China is currently the cheapest location for manufacturing the key clean energy technologies considered in this report, without taking into account explicit financial support from governments. It costs up to 40% more on average to produce solar PV modules, wind turbines and battery technologies in the United States, up to 45% more in the European Union, and up to 25% more in India.
The door of the new energy economy is still open to emerging markets
Emerging and developing economies in Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia account for less than 5% of the value generated from producing clean technologies today. To identify opportunities, ETP-2024 collected country-by-country data across more than 60 indicators, assessing the business environment, infrastructure for energy and transport, resource availability and domestic market size.
EVENTS
The 10th Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy
May 14-16, 2025, Georgia Institute of Technology
Hosted by Georgia Tech, the Atlanta Conference provides a forum to present and discuss high quality empirical research by about 300 scholars representing more than 30 countries that focus on the challenges and trends associated with science and innovation policy and processes. Abstracts Due: Nov. 17, 2024.
SSTI's Annual Conference: Focusing on the Future
December 10-12, Metro Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Yearly gathering of leaders across all aspects of regional innovation advancement through public-private partnerships, policies and government-funded programs in the practice of technology-based economic development across the U.S.
WICK#12 PhD Workshop in Economics of Innovation, Complexity and Knowledge
December 12-13 2024, Turin
Annual meeting for doctoral students and young researchers in Economics of Innovation, Complexity and Knowledge. The Workshop is organized by the students of the Vilfredo Pareto Doctoral Program in Economics, in collaboration with the University of Turin, BRICK, Collegio Carlo Alberto and Young Scholar Initiative
Subscriptions & Comments
Please forward this newsletter to anyone you think will find it of value. We look forward to collaborating with you on this initiative. If you would like to comment on, or contribute to, the content, subscribe or unsubscribe, please contact us at ipl.munkschool@utoronto.ca .
This newsletter is prepared by Travis Southin.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe
