Learning Corner

AUTHOR: Amar Bhidé

YEAR: 2008

PUBLISHER: Princeton University Press

Many warn that the next stage of globalization - the offshoring of research and development to China and India - threatens the foundations of Western prosperity.

But in The Venturesome Economy, acclaimed business and economics scholar Amar Bhidé shows how wrong the doomsayers are.

Using extensive field studies on venture-capital-backed businesses to examine how technology really advances in modern economies, Bhidé explains why know-how developed abroad enhances - not diminishes - prosperity at home, and why trying to maintain the U.S. lead by subsidizing more research or training more scientists will do more harm than good.

Many players - entrepreneurs, managers, financiers, salespersons, consumers, and not just a few brilliant scientists and engineers - have kept the United States at the forefront of the innovation game. As long as their venturesome spirit remains alive and well, advances abroad need not be feared.