Why Europe Must End Its 30-Year Digital Winter to Ensure Its Long-Run Future
In the last 30 years, Europe — defined here as the EU plus the U.K., Norway and Switzerland — has created few leading digital businesses compared to the U.S. and China. This long digital winter is symptomatic of underlying problems that are behind persistent gaps between the U.S. and Europe in GDP per capita, output per worker and various measures of innovation. It is also a bellwether for other cutting-edge technologies. The European Commission has documented these problems periodically, since at least 2000, and called for reforms. None has narrowed much less closed the gaps.