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America and the World: We're #40! Print E-mail
bridges vol. 23, October 2009 / Feature Article

By Stephen Ezell


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The following article was originally published in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas .


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Average broadband speeds in 15 countries are faster than in the US.
In Japan, citizens check in to airlines, pay transit fares, and bank through their cell phones. Average broadband speeds in 15 countries are faster than in the United States. And in Finland, virtually all primary care physicians use electronic health records. Germany leads the United States in innovation and development of solar cells, Denmark leads in wind power, Japan leads in robotics, and the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries at the heart of GM's vaunted all-electric Volt were designed and manufactured in South Korea.

Not long ago, America's global leadership in technology innovation was taken as a given. Research from U.S. corporate, academic, and government laboratories reeled off a string of transformative innovations, in everything from transistors, mobile phones, and personal computers to lasers, graphical user interfaces, search engines, the Internet, and genetic sequencing. But other countries have since closed the innovation gap, and in many cases far outpaced the United States. What happened to America's advantage?

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