Quote:One French tech entrepreneur has described America's edge this way: "The confluence of a large pool of capital, world-class talent, vibrant support infrastructure, and a risk-loving culture has bred a self-fulfilling cycle of innovation and entrepreneurship."

Don't skip over that bit about culture. A European Commission study found Europeans more skeptical of entrepreneurship than Americans, and possessing a higher level of uncertainty avoidance. The churn of American society — companies starting and dying, workers switching firms — is also key to America's innovative capacity.

In a new analysis, San Francisco Federal Reserve economist John Fernald notes that America's "economic fluidity and dynamism" helps spread ideas throughout the private sector. It's why Europe invested a lot in computers in the 1990s but never got a tech boom that boosted productivity, Fernald explains.

That's the real challenge for the next American president: Making sure policy is supportive of an ecology — taxes, trade, regulation, intellectual property — that promotes dynamism and churn. It must guarantee the U.S economy remains open to competition, whether from within or from abroad. That's a big part of what this election should be about. SHARE!

Quote:The way taxes work in Nordic nations — a group that includes Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, and, randomly, Estonia — is different from how it works here. In the US, taxes are prepared privately by the people who pay them (or by those people's accountants). In Nordic countries, they're prepared by the government. As a result, people in Nordic countries don't have to do much of anything to file their taxes. They just need to agree the government has prepared the forms correctly. For the people who don't have specialized income to declare, this is painless enough that they can confirm via text.