MIT Sloan Management Review Article on The Great Innovation Deceleration

Our response to the COVID-19 pandemic could damage the world’s collective brain.

The rise of the West is often traced back to the Black Death of the mid-1300s, which killed over 40% of Europe’s population. For example, some historians think that the resulting labor scarcity increased the bargaining power of peasants in the West, which led to the end of serfdom and to higher standards of living but failed to bring about institutional change in the East.

Many parallels between COVID-19 and the Black Death have been drawn, but most of them are unhelpful. In a medieval economy, fewer people meant more land per person and a higher income for the average citizen. The opposite is true in today’s knowledge-based economy, since ideas are non-rivalrous and, unlike land, can be used by everyone simultaneously.

About the Author

Carl Benedikt Frey (@carlbfrey) is the author of The Technology Trap (Princeton University Press, 2019) and Oxford Martin Citi Fellow at the Oxford Martin School at Oxford University, where he directs its Future of Work program.

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