Zelo zanimiv komentar v Eurointelligence, ki primerja starost največjih 40 nemških (146 let) in 5 največjih ameriških podjetij (manj kot 50) let in to povezuje z manjšo inovativnostjo. Starejša podjetja so bolj konzervativna in manj inovirajo, mlada podjetja pa se lahko prebijejo in zrastejo zgolj preko inovacij. Vendar zadeva ni tako enostavna. Ni problem v tem, da ima Evropa stara podjetja, problem je, ker okolje ne spodbuja rasti in razvoja novih, inovativnih podjetij. Münchau v komentarju pravilno opozori, da je problem Evrope (1) v skorajda nedelujočem kapitalskem trgu, ki za razliko od ZDA ne išče tako intenzivno visokih donosov v startupih; (2) v visokih korporativnih davkih, prek katerih je mogoče sofinancirati socialno državo in (3) v pomanjkanju ciljnih državnih subvencij tehnološkim podjetjem (za razliko od ZDA, kjer so ključne nove tehnologije nastale zaradi kanaliziranja vojaških izdatkov v podjetja, ki so jih razvijala). Kitajska je tukaj podobna ZDA, vendar za faktor 10-krat bolj intenzivna. Zato sta Kitajska in ZDA tehnološka voditelja, Evropa pa vedno bolj zaostaja.

No, in iz te perspektive nič ne kaže, da bi se v Evropi v bodoče kaj spremenilo, kajti evropski socialni model se ne bo spremenil, EU pa je tvorba majhnih nacionalnih enot, s 27 različnimi nacionalnimi prioritetami, kar ne omogoča kritične mase pri javnem financiranju novih tehnologij (denimo na vojaškem področju). Čez 10 let bo povprečna starost evropskih podjetij za 10 let višja.

Handelsblatt reported on an interesting study that looked in some detail into why European companies are increasingly falling behind the US and China. One reason is that we have been relying for our growth on increasingly old companies. The five largest companies in the US have in common that they have been founded in the last 50 years. Germany’s forty largest companies are on average 146 years old. One of them, Merck, dates back to 1668. There is only one newcomer in the Dax 30: Zalando, an online e-commerce company founded in 2008. The second youngest one is SAP, the software maker, which is already 52 years old.

There is nothing wrong with old companies. They are great for developing existing technologies. Sometimes, they manage to reinvent themselves. But it is company upstarts that give you radically new technologies, the kind which arose out of the discovery of quantum mechanics in the early part of the century. It was discovered in Europe, of course, but exploited in the US after the second world war. An entire digital economy arose from this discovery, starting with the invention of the transistor in 1947.

The dominant players in the digital world were not the typewriter-makers of yesterday, but those who thought about the new market in a different way. The reason why Europe’s car industry is behind Tesla and the Chinese is that they failed to see it coming, and when it came, they realised that the Chinese and the Americans had already secured the most important nodes of the next-generation supply chains.

According to an analysis by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, a law firm, the UK and Germany have the oldest companies among the largest 40 companies. In the UK the average age is 151. In the US it is only 70 years.

The analysis of why that is so is in our view superficial. The study claims more venture capital, more unicorns, more stock exchange listings. It is the capital markets perspective. We agree with this, of course, but there is more to this story. Government intervention, and especially military purchases, has played a huge role in the development of digital technologies. This is unfortunately not a consolation to Europeans. We are using our high taxes to fund social transfers, not public sector investments. Innovators are therefore confronted with the worst of all worlds: a capital market not fit for purpose, high taxes and low public sector investments.

We are not sure that the EU can simply emulate the US method one-by-one even if it gave itself a capital markets union. This requires a single safe asset and a fiscal union to function as intended. For a capital-markets driven system of innovation, you require a complete reboot of your entire socio-economic system. You would need to replace your pay-as-you go pension systems with pension funds. You would have to stop subsidising old industries, and let them fall over the cliff.

You would need lower rates of corporate taxes, which you can only have through cuts in social transfers. You would also need to raise public investment spending.

While libertarians never tire of advocating those policies, it is safe to predict that this will not happen, not even during a long-lasting period of economic decline. We know the politics of decline.

The way the EU responds to industrial decline is through regulation. As we keep pointing out, your ability to regulate is a lagging function of your ability to innovate. The EU’s regulatory predominance dates back to the glory days of European industry in the late 20th century.

The most likely political response to decline is to double down on social transfers, to increase protectionism, which is now starting to happen, or to be deflected by other agendas. Structural decline begets structural decline.

So here is our central prediction: in ten years time, the average age of the top forty companies will be ten years higher.

Vir: Eurointelligence