Cable Industry News
Innovation will get the economy moving
Monday, 07, June, 2010
Ever since Ed Balls attracted ridicule for inserting the phrase in a Gordon Brown lecture a decade and a half ago, people have wondered what "post neo-classical endogenous growth theory" means. Now we know. It means what Vince Cable does.The new business secretary said as much last week in his first big speech in the job, noting that Balls had "unwittingly" explained the rationale for a department which emerged from the doldrums under Peter Mandelson's stewardship during Labour's dying days.
Stripped of the jargon, PNCEGT means stuff the government can do to make the economy grow faster. The assumption is that the market should be left to "work its magic" most of the time, but the state has a role in boosting innovation and making sure the workforce is properly equipped with the necessary know-how.Cable says his task is get the private sector moving while the Treasury is taking the axe to public spending. "By bringing together university policy, skills policy, business regulation and competition policy, science and research policy, it (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) has become, in effect, the department for economic growth.
