How Many Light Bulbs Does It Take to Change the World?

Innovation is an important source of economic growth. It increases productivity and creates wealth by freeing up resources to be used for other activity and hence more output. Despite its economic importance, innovation is still not fully understood and is difficult to predict. In pre-modern societies, institutions and practices worked against innovation by aiming to make life more predictable and stable and minimise the effects of change. Nowadays, government uses the precautionery principle and stifes to prevent competition and maintain its privileged positions. Intellectual property, occupational licensing, and government favouritism are ways of keeping innovators out. However, innovation is the natural and inevitable result of trade and exchange. When people meet, they not only trade material goods but also exchange ideas and knowledge, which can then be combined in new and unexpected ways. The meeting of minds is not just a figure of speech, but an expression of how new ideas arise and are tested collectively. The current trend to create a global regulatory order threatens to stop innovation in its tracks