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Studies deploying different methods, measuring innovation through different means and over different time periods, collectively provide consistent and persuasive evidence that the current innovation system is becoming increasingly inefficient and unproductive. While intellectual property and other exclusive rights are critical to continued firm investment in research and development, too much intellectual property actually decreases efficiency through siloing and high transaction costs. Firms retrench to lower-risk projects. The consequence is a declining level of growth due to innovation, rending the argument that governments ought to invest more in innovation precarious. As a result, governments curtail funding, leading university researchers to become increasingly risk-adverse, particularly when facing a peer review system that rewards short term citations over long-term contribution. At some point, as West (2017) speculates, inefficiency leads to more loss of productivity that, in turn, leads to greater declines in efficiency.

Whether the innovation system reaches such a decline in efficiency depends, in part, on whether the actors in the innovation system can curtail cost escalation and increase productivity. Following David (2003), we can fix some of these difficulties by re-establishing an equilibrium between proprietary and open science models of innovation. The last several decades witnessed a slide away from open science toward proprietary models, upsetting a balance that has sustained science for three centuries. The belief that science was only done in the academy and commercialization in industry (Chesbrough, 2019) is not only factually incorrect – the vaccine to fight Ebola was created, developed and trialed solely by the public sector (Herder et al., 2020) and the largest pre-clinical drug deal in Canadian history arose out of an OSP (“The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research and the Structural Genomics Consortium Develop and Give Away New Drug-like Molecule to Help Crowd-Source Cancer Research” n.d.) – but blinds us to advantages of open science partnerships in accelerating commercial development.

Chief among those challenges is how humanity manages the dangers of its own genius. Advances in weaponry, biology, and computing could spell the end of the species, either through deliberate misuse or a large-scale accident. Societies face risks whose sheer scale could paralyze any concerted action. But governments can and must take meaningful steps today to ensure the survival of the species without forgoing the benefits of technological progress. Indeed, the world will need innovation to overcome several cataclysmic dangers it already faces—humanity needs to be able to generate and store clean energy, detect novel diseases when they can still be contained, and maintain peace between the great powers without relying on a delicate balance of nuclear-enabled mutually assured destruction.

Far from a safe resting place, the technological and institutional status quo is a precarious predicament from which societies need to escape. To lay the groundwork for this escape, governments must become more aware of the risks they face and develop a robust institutional apparatus for managing them. This includes embedding a concern for worst-case scenarios into relevant areas of policymaking and embracing an idea known as “differential technological development”—reining in work that would produce potentially dangerous outcomes, such as biological research that can be weaponized, while funding and otherwise accelerating those technologies that would help reduce risk, such as wastewater monitoring for pathogen detection.

The pandemic, war in Ukraine, the threat to food security, and the resurgence of global poverty. Heatwaves, droughts, and other extreme weather events. These are not random shocks. Nor are they a perfect storm in the conventional sense, a one-off conjuncture of bad events. We face instead a confluence of lasting structural insecurities—geopolitical, economic, and existential—each reinforcing the other. We have entered a perfect long storm.

We cannot wish away these insecurities or hope that problems that occupy one part of the world will not rebound on others. COVID-19 and its repeated mutations have brought that reality home, at immense human and economic cost everywhere. We can only restore optimism by recognizing the gravity and collective nature of the threats we face and organizing ourselves more effectively to address them.

The United States lost its once-dominant position in semiconductor research and manufacturing thanks largely to shortsighted policy decisions. Thankfully, Congress, rightfully alarmed over the potential economic and national security implications, passed last year’s bipartisan CHIPS Act — which invested $52 billion in domestic semiconductor research and manufacturing — to regain a foothold.

And yet, when it comes to our currently world-leading biotechnology industry, our leaders are repeating many of the same mistakes that ceded our leadership in semiconductors. They’re creating an inhospitable policy environment that may well lead to the United States losing our preeminent position in that field as well.

In recent years, sustainable energy technologies like solar photovoltaics and wind turbines have made significant advancements, resulting in lower costs, increased competitiveness, improved efficiency, and reduced environmental impact (Renewable IRENA, 2020). Battery technologies have also facilitated the widespread adoption of battery-powered electric mobility and storage for integrating clean energy into the grid (Awijen et al., 2022). Innovative technologies enhance standards and market access (Esmaeilpour Moghadam, 2023; Esmaeilpour Moghadam and Karami, 2023), particularly in the renewable energy sector. The growing number of patents related to low-carbon technologies globally highlights the importance of patents in protecting and reducing competitive advantage in an increasingly competitive market (Yu et al., 2016). Through innovation, renewable energy technologies enable a global shift away from a fossil fuel-dependent economy, reducing reliance on fossil fuels (Barton, 2006; Brathwaite et al., 2010).

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region possesses abundant renewable energy resources, making it well-suited for the development and implementation of sustainable power systems, particularly solar and wind power (Stambouli, 2011; Tsikalakis et al., 2011). Many countries in the MENA region have recognized the potential of renewable energy and have set ambitious targets for its adoption. For example, Saudi Arabia aims to transition 50% of its electricity to renewable sources by 2030 (Renewable IRENA, 2020). The region has made significant progress in renewable energy adoption, thanks to favorable policies and regulatory frameworks. However, challenges such as financing options and a lack of supportive policies and regulations hinder the expansion of sustainable energy in the region (Carafa, 2015; Krupa et al., 2019). The COVID-19 crisis has further disrupted the energy market, underscoring the need for collaborative efforts from governments, investors, and stakeholders to establish supportive policies, provide financing, and strengthen regulatory frameworks. Green innovation can play a crucial role in addressing these challenges and accelerating the transition to a cleaner energy future in the MENA region (Tambovceva et al., 2019; Albaker et al., 2023). By developing new and innovative technologies, barriers such as limited infrastructure, high upfront costs, and technical difficulties can be overcome (Kabir et al., 2018). Energy storage and automated grid technologies can facilitate the integration of clean energy into the grid, managing the variability of carbon-free energy sources and addressing infrastructure limitations (Kumar and Rathore, 2023). This study aims to explore the relationship between green innovation and the development of clean energy in the MENA region. It contributes to the existing literature in several ways. Firstly, while previous studies have primarily focused on the regulatory and institutional hurdles, including corruption, that impede the progress of renewable energy (Ahmed and Le, 2021; Hille et al., 2020; Tolliver et al., 2020; Liang and Fiorino, 2013; Becker and Fischer, 2013; Sonntag O’Brien and Usher 2004), there is limited research exploring the impact of green innovation on the advancement of clean energy in the MENA region. In light of this gap in the literature, our study aims to contribute by investigating the influence of green innovation on the development of clean energy in MENA. To strengthen our analysis, we employ both first-generation techniques and second-generation estimation techniques as robustness checks. By employing these approaches, we ensure the reliability and validity of our findings, enhancing the overall rigor of the research. Secondly, unlike previous studies that cover various innovative technologies like photovoltaic panels and electric vehicles (Osório et al., 2021; Ding et al., 2023; Talaat et al., 2021; Aftab et al., 2020; Gu et al., 2014; Yohanandhan et al., 2022), our research specifically focuses on the influence of green innovation, measured by patents related to environmental technologies, on the establishment and implementation of sustainable energy systems in MENA. Thirdly, utilizing patents as a metric for green innovation offers significant advantages, providing a direct assessment of innovation deployment and broader geographical coverage compared to alternative approaches. By emphasizing patents related to environmental technologies as indicators of green innovation in the MENA region, we highlight the importance of technologies such as solar panels, wind turbines, energy storage systems, advanced grid systems, and carbon capture and storage solutions. The subsequent sections of the paper include a literature review, a description of the data, model, and methodology employed, presentation of findings, and a conclusion.

In recent decades, the U.S. crop seed industry has become more concentrated, with fewer and larger firms dominating seed supply. Expanded intellectual property rights combined with structural changes in the seed industry spurred seed and biotechnology companies to increase research and development (R&D) spending that resulted in a series of innovations to crop agriculture. At the same time, seed prices have risen substantially, especially for genetically modified varieties, reflecting the value of improved seed varieties and gains in market power for top seed companies.

Expanded Intellectual Property Rights Spurred Structural Changes

The history of industrial revolutions provides valuable insights into how patents and patenting systems influence innovation. It also reveals the extent to which inventors have relied on other ways to protect their ideas, including secrecy, sharing and showcasing them at international exhibitions.

We are now firmly in the middle of the fourth industrial revolution, according to the World Economic Forum. This is a period of rapid and widespread technological change characterised by the development of cyber-based and digital innovations (World Intellectual Property Office, WIPO, 2023).

Amid the poles of overreaction and not enough reaction to the virus, one thing is certain: To be as consumed by fear as I am about the coronavirus alone is fundamentally ungrounded. Certainly, we should be vigilant. We should be careful, but our response illustrates the catastrophic human tendency to improperly acknowledge those alternatively much greater existential threats that seem distant. Just slight contemplation, though, shows that the blinders we have to our real existential threats are truly and incredibly terrifying.

A survey of experts from the “Future of Humanity Institute” at the University of Oxford states that there is a 19 percent chance of human extinction before 2100. If this is the risk of our extinction, then consequently, an extreme decrease in quality of life is much more likely, too. Among the many risks within contemporary life, issues surrounding antibiotic resistance are almost completely unacknowledged, incredibly dangerous and subject to change with only slight cultural and industrial shifts. The WHO claims that, “without urgent action, we are heading towards a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor illnesses can once again kill.” The UN claims that by 2050, ten million people will die every year from antibiotic-resistant diseases – which is more than the current figure for cancer.

Feb 6 (Reuters) - A leading conservation research group found that 40% of animals and 34% of plants in the United States are at risk of extinction, while 41% of ecosystems are facing collapse.

Everything from crayfish and cacti to freshwater mussels and iconic American species such as the Venus flytrap are in danger of disappearing, a report released on Monday found.

Numerous scholars from various fields of science today are concerned with the ongoing collapse of biodiversity. The first Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES),1 published in 2019, estimates that:

The rate of global change in nature during the past 50 years is unprecedented in human history (…) Human actions threaten more species with global extinction now than ever before. (…) An average of around 25% of species in assessed animal and plant groups are threatened, suggesting that around 1 million species already face extinction, many within decades, unless action is taken to reduce the intensity of drivers of biodiversity loss.

There are more than eight billion people in the world today, and that number is getting bigger. The latest analysis of data from the United Nations Population Division indicates that the global population will peak at about 10.4 billion in 2086.

This growth will occur predominately in less economically developed countries, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, urbanization will also significantly increase: The proportion of people living in the world's 101 largest cities is expected to grow from 11% to as much as 23% by 2100.

Humans have fought over food and the means of producing it for 20,000 years, as rock art in Australia shows. Food, water and land scarcity are primary drivers in two thirds of modern conflicts today. Indeed, many people seem to have forgotten that the primary German war aim in World War II was to take farmland from the Soviets and put German farmers on it. It is very likely that controlling the Ukraine’s bountiful and reliable food bowl is among Putin’s main aims also. In the short run this is imposing hunger and even starvation on hundreds of millions of people far beyond Europe. 

Spreading hunger in turn snowballs into government failures, civil wars and refugee tsunamis around the world – as it did in 2008 when a shortfall in Ukrainian grain exports led to revolutions in three Arab countries. Already, a third of a billion people – equal to the entire population of Europe – leave their homes each year, either as refugees or economic migrants, to seek better lives in countries which seem more stable and food secure. War will add to the flood.

In September 2021, after absorbing three months of price hikes that were more than double the Federal Reserve's 2% target, U.S. central bank staff and policymakers shifted from their more passive tone about inflation and began describing it as "elevated." Triggered after the personal consumption expenditures price index used by the Fed to set its inflation target topped 4% in May, June and July of that year, the elevated inflation description remains in the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee's policy statement to this day, even with the PCE now down to 2.6% and, it seems, still falling. The Fed's policy meeting next week may finally usher the word out the door. If so, it would mark the strongest signal yet that the central bank plans to cut interest rates as soon as September and begin the easing part of its monetary policy cycle, something investors now see as a near-certainty.

Federal Reserve policymakers are seen leaving their short-term interest-rate target in the 5.25%-5.50% range next week and waiting until September to start a string of quarter-point reductions, after fresh data showed the U.S. economy regained steam last quarter. Before the data, traders had priced in about a 9% chance of a rate cut when the Fed meets next week, but knocked that down to under 7% after a government report showed the economy grew at a 2.8% pace last quarter, faster than had been expected and double the pace in the first quarter of the year. The reacceleration "should help temper concerns about the durability of the expansion and quiet chatter that the Federal Reserve needs to cut interest rates in July," wrote Oxford Economics' Ryan Sweet. Traders of futures contracts tied to the Fed policy rate continue to price in quarter-point interest-rate cuts in each of September, November and December, as they also pared bets on a possible bigger rate cut to start the series.

The big question right now is whether the economy's could morph into a painful downturn. But the signals that typically offer clues look more unreliable than ever. Why it matters: Recession indicators don't work like they used to. Many of them have been tripped, yet no big downturn has materialized. The quirks of the — driven by a rolling series of disruptions to supply and demand — are the likely culprit. Flashback: In the past, trends in temporary employment were a big tell — whatever happened in this sector soon happened in the broader job market. Or at least, that was the case ahead of recessions in 1991, 2001 and 2008. Declines in temp employment "preceded those in the overall labor market by 6 to 12 months" in the recessions before 2020, . The intuition is straightforward: Companies cut back on temp employees to forestall layoffs of permanent workers. Temp employment peaked in March 2022; it has shed 515,000 jobs since then, a 16% drop. But total payroll employment has kept rising anyway. "The decline has been going on for way too long for me to say there's a direct linkage" to the rest of the economy, Ger Doyle, an executive at staffing agency Manpower, tells Axios. The intrigue: There is "discussion about temporary employment being down, and 'is that a sign that things are falling apart?'" Chicago Fed president Austan Goolsbee told reporters earlier this month. Business leaders "have mostly convinced me something fundamental is changed in the labor market about the role of temporary employment," Goolsbee added. Temp employment used to be a good indicator of where you are in the business cycle, Goolsbee said, but pandemic-era labor shortages "scarred employers so much that they're like, 'We don't rely on temps anymore,'" Goolsbee said. An inverted yield curve also has a track record of predicting recessions, going back more than a half-century. The curve has been inverted — meaning the cost for the government to borrow money in the short term has been higher than in the long term — for two years, the . And still no recession. Another common rule of thumb: Two consecutive quarters of contracting GDP equals a recession. U.S. economic growth was in negative territory in the first and second quarters of 2022, yet the broader economy — as measured by indicators like employment, personal income and consumption expenditures — never cracked. Two years later, conditions haven't come close to the point that would trip the National Bureau of Economic Research's 's definition of recession as "a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months." What to watch: The labor market is on the cusp of triggering an indicator with a near-perfect track record of detecting a recession in real time — but even the inventor of that rule is skeptical of its usefulness this time around. State of play: According to the Sahm Rule, the economy is likely in a recession when there is a 0.5 percentage point increase in the three-month average unemployment rate over the prior 12 months. As of June, at 0.43 percentage point. There are two reasons why the unemployment rate can move higher: an increase in joblessness — or more workers entering the labor force, as has been the case in recent months, without immediately finding a job. But the Sahm Rule doesn't distinguish between those two stories — so a trigger might be a quirk related to the pandemic recovery, Claudia Sahm, the former Fed economist who created the rule, tells Axios. "What the pandemic kicked off in terms of a business cycle is very unusual," Sahm adds, pointing to the unprecedented supply disruption. The bottom line: "What's worked relatively well in the past to signal a recession — it should be no surprise that now they are missing something," Sahm says. "The yield curve fell victim to this. The of GDP declines fell victim to this. I expect in the coming months the Sahm Rule will fall victim to this," she says.

The longest and deepest U.S. Treasury yield curve inversion in history, a key bond market signal of an upcoming recession, could be nearing its end.

While an inverted curve has typically preceded a recession, this time there is debate about the predictive power of the curve, with optimism that the U.S. could escape prolonged economic pain. Some indicators in recent weeks have pointed to a slowdown, but  thanks to a resilient labor market.

Economic growth picked up more than expected in the spring, as cooling inflation and a strong labor market allowed consumers to keep spending even as high interest rates weighed on their finances.

Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, increased at a 2.8 percent annual rate in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. That was faster than the 1.4 percent rate recorded in the first quarter, but shy of the unexpectedly strong growth in the second half of last year.

The Federal Reserve is expected to hold interest rates steady at a two-day policy meeting this week but open the door to interest rate cuts as soon as September by acknowledging inflation has edged nearer to the U.S. central bank's 2% target.

Policymakers in advance of the July 30-31 meeting were reluctant to commit to the timing of a first rate cut, but audibly cheered  showing price pressures were easing broadly, with headline inflation moving closer to the Fed's target and evidence from job, housing and other markets suggesting that trend would continue.

The government’s GDP report isn’t always easy to decipher. Sometimes the headline number masks trends under the surface.

But this time, there’s no mistaking that the American economy is truly on solid footing, from consumers to businesses. It also shows that the economy could pull off an extremely rare “soft landing.” That’s when inflation comes under control without the economy slipping into a recession, something that experts say has only happened once before, during the 1990s.

The U.S. economy grew faster than expected in the second quarter amid solid gains in consumer spending and business investment, but inflation pressures subsided, leaving intact expectations of a September interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve. Growth last quarter also received a boost from inventory building as well as increased government spending, the Commerce Department's advance report on second-quarter gross domestic product on Thursday showed. The housing market recovery, however, regressed and was a small drag on the economy. The trade deficit widened further, subtracting from GDP growth. The report dispelled concerns that the economic expansion was in danger of an abrupt end, which had been stoked by a lackluster performance in the first quarter and in April. The economy continues to outperform its global peers, despite hefty rate hikes from the U.S. central bank in 2022 and 2023, thanks to a resilient labor market. "Economic growth is solid, not too hot and not too cold," said Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS. "Inflation looks to be going the Fed's way and an easing of monetary restraint with an interest rate cut is likely in September." Gross domestic product increased at a 2.8% annualized rate last quarter, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis said in its advance estimate of second-quarter GDP. That was double the 1.4% growth pace in the first quarter. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast GDP rising at a 2.0% rate. Estimates ranged from a 1.1% rate to a 3.4% pace. Reuters Graphics Reuters Graphics The growth rate in the first half of the year averaged 2.1%, half the 4.2% pace logged in the last six months of 2023. That is just above the 1.8% pace viewed by U.S. central bank officials as the non-inflationary growth rate. Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the economy, increased at around a 2.3% rate after slowing to a 1.5% pace in the January-March quarter. Spending was driven by increased outlays on services like healthcare, housing and utilities as well as club memberships, visits to sports centers, parks, theaters and museums, and gambling. Consumers also boosted outlays on goods, including new light trucks, recreational goods and vehicles, furnishings and durable household equipment as well as energy products. GDP consumer contribution GDP consumer contribution Spending was in part supported by wage gains. A separate report from the Labor Department on Thursday showed the labor market steadily easing, with initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropping 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 235,000 for the week ended July 20. Business investment picked up as spending on equipment, mostly aircraft, surged at an 11.6% rate after rising at only a 1.6% pace in the first quarter. Spending on intellectual property products continued to rise, though the pace slowed from the brisk rate in the January-March quarter. Businesses also accumulated more inventory, which increased at a $71.3 billion rate after rising at a $28.6 billion pace in the prior quarter. Inventories added 0.82 percentage point to GDP growth after being a drag for two straight quarters. That more than offset a 0.72 percentage point hit from a wider trade gap.