2012 Issue

22 from 1817, 6 predating most constructs of modern science (for example, the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin in 1859, the periodic table of the elements by D. Mendeleev and discovery of radioactivity by Becquerel in 1869, Hertz’s experiments confirming the existence of electromag- netic waves in 1887), might arouse skepti- cism. The rise in American trade imbalance has been reviewed by many authors and can, in significant part, be attributed to the inadequacies of adherence to the simplistic idea of comparative advantage. 7,8 There is not room for this debate in our article, but we believe that conventional economic theories are insufficient for policy formation. The U.S. government has expressed con- cern in American competitive ability in sci- ence and engineering, 4 and many policies have been initiated to encourage develop- ment of competetive skills. A. The Value of Technology It should be no surprise that most of the existing economy is due to the contribu- tions of technology. The 1987 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Robert Solow for this idea, expressed in his paper pub- lished in 1957. 8 Figure 1 provides a view of some of the electronics technology innova- tions over the last thirty-five years. 9 These list system hardware, disk drive hardware, component hardware and software. The software events includes technical innovation (for example, Kerberos authentication program), but the body of software innovation is better described as business process innova- tion (e.g., data base software, copyright innovation, domain registrar service, search engines, distributed services). Since innovation is often driven by his- torical events, some major events are included. Systems integrate hardware components and software components, and systems development requires the talents of people from many disciplines. Systems are developed through funding provided by both government (respond- ing to historical events) and entrepre- neurial efforts (exploiting opportuni- ties). The timeline in Figure 1 begins and ends with system products, because system products provide outcomes that most impact economics. III. Utah’s Position A. Expected Growth Among the states, Utah ranks first in fertil- ity rate and 34th in job creation. Utah has a 9% poverty rate, 10 much better than the national average. Facing expected contin- ued population growth, Utah needs more employers who offer high-paying jobs. Given the value and figure’s implication of cross-fertilization shown in Figure 1, it is relevant to note that many of these innovations derived from contribution of Utahans. In fact, the University of Utah was one of the four institutions making up the first connection of the predeces- sor of the Internet. Our conclusion is that Utah has the resources to contribute to the growth of technology, and Utah should be able to reap the benefits of these contributions. B. Utah’s Position in R&D Selected statistics describing Utah’s rank- ing within the U.S. is provided as Table 1. 1 Ranking of research and development (R&D) and gross domestic product (GDP) are almost identical positions within the states, and are therefore unremarkable. Figure 1 - Innovation Timeline ECONOMY | continued from page 21