Event: Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake – ‘Capitalism without Capital’

Policy Scotland is delighted to welcome Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake to the University of Glasgow to discuss their new book ‘Capitalism without Capital’.

Description

Jonathan Haskel is professor of economics at Imperial College Business School. Stian Westlake is advisor to the UK Minister of Science and Innovation. Haskel and Westlake were cowinners of the 2017 Indigo Prize. This event, focusing on their new book, Capitalism without Capital deals with the shift from the production of physical things to the ‘intangibles economy’: the exploitation of ideas and knowledge.

Early in the twenty-first century, a quiet revolution occurred. For the first time, the major developed economies began to invest more in intangible assets, like design, branding, and software, than in tangible assets, like machinery, buildings, and computers. For all sorts of businesses, the ability to deploy assets that one can neither see nor touch is increasingly the main source of long-term success.

But this is not just a familiar story of the so-called new economy. Capitalism without Capital shows that the growing importance of intangible assets has also played a role in some of the larger economic changes of the past decade, including the growth in economic inequality and the stagnation of productivity. Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake explore the unusual economic characteristics of intangible investment and discuss how an economy rich in intangibles is fundamentally different from one based on tangibles.

Capitalism without Capital concludes by outlining how managers, investors, and policymakers can exploit the characteristics of an intangible age to grow their businesses, portfolios, and economies.