Growth and Innovation
Oftentimes, innovation and growth go hand in hand. But is this always the case:
Sustainable economic growth comes from innovation. At The Economist’s Buttonwood conference a few weeks ago, Timothy Geithner spoke of the administration’s commitment to innovation. He claimed you cannot have innovation without growth.
I am not sure that’s true. Often the most desperate economic circumstances spawn some of the best innovation. Nor is the converse true, you can grow without innovation. Putting more capital and labour towards production can yield positive economic growth. But you cannot grow forever this way. Innovation is what allows you to use a finite amount of resources more efficiently, yielding the kind of growth that is sustainable.
As a further thought, note that lots of innovations that are extremely useful don’t have particularly important growth implications. Gregory Clark points out in A Farewell to Alms that there was a huge amount of technical innovation in Europe before the Industrial Revolution, but basically no per capita economic growth. Part of the reason for this is that revolutionizing economically marginal sectors doesn’t really do much to change the overall economic picture. Consider the printing press. Big deal! Important innovation! Changed lots of things. Nevertheless, the books sector of the economy was so tiny that even a drastic increase in the productivity of the books sector didn’t have any macroeconomic impact.
For a contemporary example, you might think of Wikipedia. It’s an impressive technical and social achievement, and certainly counts as innovation. And it’s important—it’s really changed how people look stuff up and live their lives. But it’s not economically important, it’s not driving GDP growth forward, because it’s not a profit-making business and because the encyclopedias sector of the economy has never been large. Similarly, I don’t think instant messaging has really worked as a major profit-generator for anyone, but it’s sure changed how young people keep in touch with our friends.
35 Responses to “Growth and Innovation”
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November 4th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Perhaps the lesson you should be learning is that things that don’t boost the economy can still be extremely important to the development of our species. Economic growth is a means to advancement, it is not actually an end unto itself.
Money is everything to you people, and it’s both sick and wrong.
November 4th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
For a contemporary example, you might think of Wikipedia.
No, that would be a bad example: Book is to printing press what wikipedia is to internet.
Now, as for the internet – as someone who gets to work from home 2 days a week thanks to VPN, IM, e-mail, etc. I think its had a huge economic impact.
November 4th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Gregory Clark points out in A Farewell to Alms that there was a huge amount of technical innovation in Europe before the Industrial Revolution, but basically no per capita economic growth. Part of the reason for this is that revolutionizing economically marginal sectors doesn’t really do much to change the overall economic picture.
No, the reason was because there were, according to Clark, Malthusian conditions back then. The innovation did include agriculture, it is just that the gain from the innovation was swamped by population growth. Did you really read that book Matt?
But I would urge you to look at the Solow growth model, you know, the one they teach in introductory macro, wherein technolgoical change, i.e. innovation, accounts for ALL economic growth at equilibrium:
http://www.wellesley.edu/Economics/weerapana/econ202/econ202pdf/lecture%20202-03.pdf
November 4th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Soullite’s first paragraph might be the first time i’ve ever agreed with soullite.
November 4th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
To make my point even more obvious re: the Solow model, let us turn to Wikipedia:
Long run implications
In neoclassical growth models, the long-run rate of growth is exogenously determined – in other words, it is determined outside of the model. A common prediction of these models is that an economy will always converge towards a steady state rate of growth, which depends only on the rate of technological progress and the rate of labor force growth.
A country with a higher saving rate will experience faster growth, e.g. Singapore had a 40% saving rate in the period 1960 to 1996 and annual GDP growth of 5-6%, compared with Kenya in the same time period which had a 15% saving rate and annual GDP growth of just 1%. This relationship was anticipated in the earlier models, and is retained in the Solow model; however, in the very long-run capital accumulation appears to be less significant than technological innovation in the Solow model.
Now Solow may or may not be right, though I think he is basically right, but it is hardly controversial for Geither to say what he did considering this.
November 4th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
What we call growth is simply more money. The printing press slowly and inexorably changed lives on an individual and cumulative basis. Expanding literacy, knowledge including the scientific kind and then technical quite quickly. There wasn’t much growth however. Now however we have mastered the art of printing money and the growth is relentless. Or has been. Beyond that innovation has little to do with it. More money means growth. As long as the money is widely accepted and desired that is.
November 4th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Oftentimes, innovation and growth go hand in hand.
I missed this, so I guess I would have altered my comments above some. The problem is that your misrepresentation of Clark’s book made it sound like you were dimissing the growth/innovation link, but it seems you are making the more limited argument. I agree that not all innovation means growth, though I’d like to see Geithner’s actual quote suggesting otherwise. But you are still wrong on Clark. Very wrong. His point was not that there was the innovation but no capita growth because of the Guttenberg press etc., but rather that we had not broken out of a Malthusian cycle yet, so all economic growth was swamped by an increase in population.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Ah, geeze. You don’t have economic growth if you are losing your relative technological advantage to competitors. Or if your educational system is stupid, inefficient and creating some of the most stupid fucks on the planet. Or if your capital is being invested in a foreign land instead of in your homeland. Or if you are pissing $Trillions away on military operations to sustain an economic system that LOSES money is big fucking globs but which enrichs a chosen few while dumping poverty on the many.
Or if you piss $Trillions away on imprisoning a substantial portion of your population because you rather spend $80,000 a year locking someone away in a hole rather than provide then with opportunity by demanding that corporations stop importing cheap, illegal foreign labor.
But if you have a News Media dedicated to LYING to the American People, you can expect a slow arterial bleeding which slowly destroys this country. ANd you can expect economist whores to sucking up for grants and consulting contracts to carefully avert their eyes from the ongoing trainwreck.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I’m surprised by your conflation of “profit-making” and GDP growth in the last paragraph, considering your prominent support of federal investment in public infrastructure. High-speed rail is not a profitable venture in itself as you’ve argued elsewhere, but it does contribute to GDP growth and to the more abstract public good.
Nevertheless, I think you’re hitting onto something important here. The question of growth versus innovation is particularly relevant to the experience of development in the former Soviet Union and in other communist nations. On the one hand, the major epoch of Stalinist industrialization was a case of extensive (capital accumulating) rather than intensive (productivity led) growth. On the other hand, major innovations in military and aerospace technology continued in the U.S.S.R. up until the collapse, but however much of the state budget they consumed, these constituted marginal sectors in a modern consumer economy, hence public dissatisfaction.
Wikipedia is a different case entirely. As Yochai Benkler argues, it constitutes an instance in a new sphere of economic and social life: commons-based peer production. Thus far, this realm is limited to information technology, but desktop manufacturing could some day extend it to the material world as well. In which case, we would would develop both a more prosperous and innovative society without a corresponding effect on GDP per capita.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
MY, you are definitely wrong about this one. The printing press may not have immediately lead to headline economic growth, but since it laid the groundwork for faster innovation in a whole array of fields it eventually contributed to what we describe as the industrial revolution.
I think the important take away from this one, which you have sort of hinted at on other occasions is that simply because an idea does not directly generate a profit or even have an immediate impact on other people’s profits, it does not mean it does aid in economic growth (which is really just the ability of the society to produce more useful stuff). Wikipedia is a great example of something that doesn’t make any money, but makes lots of people more productive at their jobs (which are profitable). Advancements in learning technology, which are less common these days but definitely included the printing press, do not generally lead to profits for anyone in particular but since they can result in a better educated workforce, can lead to long term productivity growth.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Blah. This seems just wrong. Innovation generates
productivity growth. That’s precisely why people bother to
innovate: it allows them to do more or better stuff, or do
the same stuff more cheaply.
“Consider the printing press. Big deal! Important innovation! Changed lots of things. Nevertheless, the books sector of the economy was so tiny that even a drastic increase in the productivity of the books sector didn’t have any macroeconomic impact.”
But obviously it did have *some* impact. In the short term,
the direct effects were small. In the long term, it got
pretty big: think of the mass readership of newspapers and
novels in the 19th century onwards. And the indirect
effects of allowing more people to access more knowledge
were huge. Hard to imagine the Industrial Revolution
without printed books to allow the dissemination of
scientific and technological knowledge.
“For a contemporary example, you might think of Wikipedia. It’s an impressive technical and social achievement, and certainly counts as innovation. And it’s important—it’s really changed how people look stuff up and live their lives. But it’s not economically important, it’s not driving GDP growth forward”
But it is. Definitely. All kinds of knowledge workers
can now find information in 10 seconds that previously
would have required hours of research in a good library -
and the information is much more up-to-date. That has a
big effect even though little of the economic benefit
accures to the creators of Wikipedia.
All your argument comes down to is that innovations in
small sectors of the economy don’t generate big increases
in total GDP. Well, duh. But a whole bunch of innovations
in a whole bunch of small sectors of the economy adds up
to substantial improvements in average productivity.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I tend to agree with David and jmo. The size of the publishing industry is not the measure of the economic impact of the printing press. It doubtless led to productivity increases in innumerable other larger industries by lowering the cost of spreading information.
From a straight mathematical perspective, if you improve efficiency without reducing your resources you get growth. Of course, as David points out, if we’re talking per capita growth, the question is do you grow faster than the population increases.
On the moral point, I tend to agree with the general liberal position that median real income growth is most vital. However, population growth has a similar impact on median income as it does on average income, so switching measures doesn’t really affect the overall growth-innovation discussion.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
I agree with mpowell here. Books and literacy and the stuff they foster are all part of techological change. The point that wikipedia or some other essentially free service that the internet is spawning might not directly contribute to GDP but is still good, as Matt has argued in the past, is not the same thing as saying they do not indirectly contribute to growth, because they very well can and do, I think.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
As an addendum, I’d say there probably are cases where innovation is meaningful but doesn’t lead to productivity growth. Increasing access to arts and entertainment makes our lives a great deal more enjoyable and satisfying.
There are side benefits that produce economic gains, but on the whole I’d guess that say, people checking out TVtropes.com at work is likely more of a drag on the economy than a growth booster. However, it produces a lot of fun at a low cost, so it probably contributes to the growth national happiness and there’s nothing wrong with that.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Growth has become tautology. Virtually all the growth post 2001 was financial in nature. Relating to money itself and prices of financial assets, and real estate of course. Beyond homes and retail stores it’s pretty difficult to see what grew in the American economy. It is even harder to see what could possibly grow in the economy in terms of physical capital or services to citizens that are understood as improvement in their lives. All we have left is trying to expand the amount of money which is directed into increasing the prices of the assets of the top 10%. That’s growth. Take it or leave it.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
It is even harder to see what could possibly grow in the economy in terms of physical capital or services to citizens that are understood as improvement in their lives.
It is even harder to see what could possibly grow in the economy in term sof physical capital or services to me that I would understand as an improvement in my life.
There, fixed that for you. As you may not be aware, your preferences are not universal.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
But that’s a silly way of defining economic growth. If wide proliferation of skilled robots led to zero marginal cost of production for all goods and services, theoretically no one would make any profits–would that imply shrinkage of our economy to nothing? No, by any reasonable definition it would imply growth to infinity. The way GDP is measured is simply a proxy for economic growth, a proxy of varying utility for different purposes. I think Wikipedia in itself, even leaving out any potential effects on the for-profit sector, represents substantial real growth in the sense that it provides a highly valuable service to a large number of people. This kind of growth is not essentially different than the kind that provides profits.
November 4th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
i also think wikipedia is a bad example. sure, the website that everyone goes to might not be a profitable thing, even if it is kind of cool. but the technology that powers the wikipedia website also powers companies internal wikis that i’m sure help make them more efficient.
November 4th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
MY takes a very unimaginative view of things here. Something like the printing press or Wikipedia dramatically increase the flow of information, something that we would expect to facilitate growth and thus innovation in other sectors. These indirect impacts are hard to measure, but I assure you that they contribute substantially to GDP growth.
November 4th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Stupid post. Next.
November 4th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
I can’t think of an example of innovation spawned by “desperate economic circumstances”. Probably a failure of my knowledge or imagination, but I note that The Economist didn’t back up his,her, there or it’s assertion with any examples at all.
The quoted pssage made me think of the Wikipedia.
It is widely noted that one of The Wikipedia’s contributions to the human discussion is “[citation needed]” [citation needed] (how about that for the use mention distinction which you often blog about [citation needed]). If I could, I would edit free exchange from “Often the most desperate economic circumstances spawn some of the best innovation.” to “Often the most desperate economic circumstances spawn some of the best innovation [examples needed].”
If something happens “often,” it should be too hard to come up with a few examples. The Economist does not seem to have felt any obligation to present any evidence in support of his or her or their claim of fact.
Is any useful purpose is served by refraining from mocking people who claim that something has happened often and give no examples ? I’d guess that reflexive mockery of such claims (along the lines of mentioning the swan song singing fascist octopus when people mix metaphors) would improve the human discussion.
I can give examples of such useful reflexiv mockery (I’d better no ? The weasel word “guess won’t save me from everything).
1) Someone presents wishes as plans. Someone else will reply “a wish is not a plan” (OK) or “and a pony” (now that phrase imposes some discipline on the debate).
2) Well lets trot out the fascist swan song singing octopus again (its going clippity clop with its tentacles).
3) while we are on Orwell, “a not un-white dog chansed a non un-small rabbit across an not un-green field” would improve the debate if it weren’t so un-usual. (a wish is not a plan and it is not evidence either).
4) Reflexive opposition to anonymous sources who are clearly not whistle blowers has improved discussion (in the blogosphere).
5) well hell just compare the level of debate in the progressive blogosphere with the level of the rest of the debate. I’m not talking about the left slant, but the low level of tollerance for BS of all kinds. Sure it is parasitic on a target rich environment, but its strange customs and conventions are useful.
November 4th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
I’ve done some back of the napkin calculations: the best way to jump start and maintain sustainable future GDP growth is to build 200 publicly traded corporate mega prisons and incarcerate 22.5% of the population.
Wall Street banks will be happy to open the vaults and start loaning again. Financiers will jump at this mortal lock gambling opportunity provided by government -and produce the requisite funding. Almost full employment will result from this public/private contract, as we fill the prisons with unemployed deadwood. Construction companies will sop up what ever remains of the unemployed, and the hardhat, toolbelt crowd will get back to work building something other than empty McMansions.
Now, if pansy-ass liberals will just get out of the way, and allow us to execute 10% of the prison population every year, the system will become self sustaining. Then, THEN, we can then cut taxes on the rich, spurring new investment, innovation, and growth, leading to a new government revenue stream that will not only reduce deficits but eventually create a huge government surplus, allowing us to increase defense spending to provide extra special security for real Americans.
Building private sector mega prisons will have tremendous tangible results, unlike ethereal technological advancements like printing presses and Wikipedia, innovations which lead only to an increase in the supply of burdensome and unproductive effete snobs and airy intellectuals.
And yes, Green People, these prisons can be powered by wind farms. Or dirty coal plants. Who cares? It does not matter.
GROWTH IS GROWTH.
November 4th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Matt, you’re confusing the economic impact on the sector from which innovation arises with economic impact itself.
The production and sale of books didn’t account for a significant portion of the overall economy, but the wider distribution of books–the use of books as a means pedagogy–had a HUGE economic impact.
Wikipedia is somewhat different–in that it is often use for more limited personal reasons–but the same reasoning applies.
My point is not that there aren’t innovations who’s benefits dramatically outweigh their quantifiable economic impact–there certainly are–but the impact of an innovation of the size of the specific sector that produces it should not be confused with economic impact of the innovation itself.
Take agriculture for example. Agriculture has shrunken from 33% of the eocnomy to 5% of the economy. But that’s not just because other industries have grown. One in three people used to work in farming; today it’s something like one in seventy. Obviously we aren’t eating less food, so the only explanation is that fewer people are produce more product–i.e. innovation (and to some degree captial).
Agriculture is an example of an industry in which innovation has actually resulted in a relative shrinking of the economic sector that produced that innovation, but allowing all those extra people to focus in producing other products has obviously grown the economy overall.
November 4th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Matt claims:
“Gregory Clark points out in A Farewell to Alms that there was a huge amount of technical innovation in Europe before the Industrial Revolution, but basically no per capita economic growth. Part of the reason for this is that revolutionizing economically marginal sectors doesn’t really do much to change the overall economic picture. Consider the printing press. Big deal! Important innovation! Changed lots of things. Nevertheless, the books sector of the economy was so tiny that even a drastic increase in the productivity of the books sector didn’t have any macroeconomic impact.”
No, you’re missing the point of the A Farewell to Alms. Gregory Clark uses an explicitly Malthusian definition of “the overall economic picture,” namely, the calorie consumption of the bottom half of the population. That didn’t improve much in England from 1200 to 1800 due to the Malthusian Trap, which wasn’t alleviated until well into the 19th Century by the Industrial Revolution. But that’s only one particular way to measure the economy.
To understand A Farewell to Alms, read:
http://vdare.com/Sailer/071008_farewell.htm
November 4th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
THE [G-20] & NEW BI-LATERAL ECONMIC REALITY
($Dollar Base Currency) VS (Diversified Currency Base)
Members of the Economic Global Community of Nations minus the American-Israeli Empire have been meeting at various sites around a shared Globe, known meeting have been held in [Sphere Three] Honk Kong, The Peoples Republic of China, and in [Sphere One] in Buenos Aires, Argentina, one would have to [Assume] that such meetings were held in other Sphere areas, to discuss not the dumping of The Dollar Based Currency System, but the time table for its ending. At present the Economic Global Economy is a Bi-Lateral [BI = 2] [Lateral= Along Side Of] two separate Economic Systems Working along side each other, as counties around the globe have been de-coupling from the Dollar Based Currency System in favor of the Diversified/Multilateral Currency Regime. The [G-20] can meet Tête-à-tête / make conversation, talk and make whatever changes, issue any amounts of mot juste: conversation-clinching one-liner’s, communiqués, however grand, the Economic Landscape is shifting from an Economic Center based in the [NYSE] New York Stock Exchange, [Wall St.], the American-Israeli Empire Federal Reserve, and the [IMF], to the new epicenter of Communities of Nations Economic Strength The Peoples Republic of China and Honk Kong, this epic shift is a rapidly on going reality, which will take the Community of Nations into the [21st] Century, ending the American-Israeli Empire and its [MIC] Military Industrial Complex.
The Dollar Based Currency System: is one that all other currencies are based upon the failing and devaluing American-Israeli Empire Currency, control by the [IMF] and the American-Israeli Empire [Federal Reserve].
Diversified/Multilateral Currency Regime: based upon a broader trade-weighted basket. The Multilateral Currencies would be the GLOBAL NUMERAIRE CURRENCIES [Euro, Pound Sterling, Japanese Yen, and Chinese Yuan], and hard currency Gold, Silver, Oil and Mineral Currency-The Russian Federation, Food Production Currency-Brazil, and Production Currency The Peoples Republic of China/India, assets that are less volatile, against price fluctuations, virtually context-free of the chance of their value disappearing entirely.
[G-20]
The [G-20] was established in [1999] and in one decade in the year [2009] has out lived its usefulness, as a forum for industrialized and developing economies to discuss global economic issues. The group includes many of the now [Global Economic Spheres of Influence], the [BRIC] and together, member countries represent around [90%] ninety per cent of global gross national product, [80%] Eighty per cent of world trade and two-thirds of the world’s population
[BRIC]
The [BRIC] Sphere of Influences, Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, and the Peoples Republic of China: Sphere [1] One: Brazil, Cuba, Argentina, Mexico, and Venezuela.
[G-20 GLOBAL ECONOMIC SPHERES]
Which now can be broken into Economic Sphere’s of Influence of;
* Sphere One: Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and Venezuela.
* Sphere Two: The Common Wealth; United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and South Africa.
* Sphere Three: The Peoples Republic of China and Indonesia.
* Sphere Four: (EU) European Union, [France, Germany; the Alliance], and Italy.
* Sphere Five: The Russian Federation, and Turkey
* Sphere Six: Saudi Arabia
* Sphere Seven: United States, Japan, and South Korea.
[IMF] International Monetary Fund
The American-Israeli Empire directly appoints the heads of the [IMF], which is basically the loan sharking department of the Empire. The [IMF] in concert with the World Bank give’s huge high risk, loose term, loans to countries to cope with crisis situations, putting them in the back pocket of the [IMF], who in turn request [Services in Return], the [IMF] is the Landlord and the loaner country becomes the provided service renter, if you get the drift. The best thing for any country is to avoid dealing with the [IMF] because they do attach strings and conditions that do more good for the [IMF] at the cost of the country taking out the loan, forcing many countries to build up huge currency reserves, rather than deal with the [IMF]. The [IMF] basically provides the Empire policy-makers with advice as how to put other countries under their economic thumbs. If a country has a sick economy going to the [IMF] is the same as cutting your own throat, plus the [IMF] can be counted upon to miss the boat when it comes to providing early warnings of impending crises, your better off seeing a Clinical Physiologist/ Medium/ Mentalist/Physic/Witch/, or just flip a coin.
[THE FEDERAL RESERVE OR INSANITY]
Now columnist Mike Larson said and we quote, I always liked that quip the definition of Insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result, and it definitely applies to the Federal Reserve, end quote. That’s his story and were both sticking to it.
The Era of the American-Israeli Empire is coming to a close, and that’s a good thing for the Human Race.
HERCULE TRIATHLON SAVINIEN
November 4th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
I find all this talk of A Farewell to Alms problematic. While I found Clark’s book compelling, particularly his observations on Malthus, he then ruins it by displaying an unforgivable ignorance of biology and statistics. Even worse, this ignorance is in service of Social Darwinism; this ruins the credibility of the book and author for me.
to TRIATHLON: This is the internet so one can expect crazy, unreadable rants, but because this is the internet if it’s going to be more that a couple of paragraphs, USE A FUCKING HYPERLINK to your crazy, unreadable blog or whatever. Posting something more than twice as long as the post it’s commenting on is just rude, and no one is going to read it. Nor should they.
November 4th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Yeah, and Shmoe comes right down to the point before I did…
jeez, that book is meant for the masters of the universe types, not really a serious serious economic history book
November 4th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
I also found Clark’s book compelling and interesting when discussing the Malthusian Trap–it is a masterful broad economic hisotry–and its criticism of other theories of the Industrial Revolution, but his own answer, while containing some interesting data, is the equivalent of the underpants gnomes theory of profit making.
November 4th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
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November 4th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
You are pretty wrong Yglesias. These things have gigantic macroeconomic impact. It may be long term and it may be hard to quantify, but it is without a question massive.
The ease of availability of information has effects that increase productivity across the board. Did the invention of the printing press or wikipedia make a difference the fiscal quarter after their invention? No. Their importance grew and continues to grow exponentially; but starting with a tiny principle and a tiny exponent.
A growth rate like this starts small, but with time its effects begin to dominate. If you think that printed books aren’t at the root of our productive capacity, you aren’t very aware of how we make products.
Wikipedia is much earlier, but so far it is following the same trend. I don’t use it for serious stuff, but it is a huge help if I need to look up a constant or equation, or to get basic knowledge on a topic with which I’m unfamiliar.
November 5th, 2009 at 1:04 am
IM is the primary way commodity traders make deals before confirming on the phone. Not sure that’s a growth booster, but anywho….
And I’m not surprised that Steve Sailer has taken A Farewell To Alms to heart. It’s not a “progressive” book; in fact the last section walks right up to a racial explanation of productivity differences without quite embracing it.
November 5th, 2009 at 1:58 am
Matt,
did you just argue that wider distribution of knowledge did not improve the overall economy? Because book sales were a small portion of the economy? That’s a dumb statement, and you know it. However, you can’t really extract yourself by qualifying yourself, here. Just back out of that post and move on.
November 5th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Both wikis (from wikipedia on down) and IM both enable and accelerate productivity and growth. They’re like good lighting in a factory. You can have a factory run with just natural light, but a factory with good artificial light can be much more productive and therefore good artificial light accelerates productivity and growth.
Likewise, with IM and wikis and blogs and other tools that allow for better communications within office environments.
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