The 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics confirms what Schumpeter already knew: growth arises when the state shares the risk of innovation and transforms knowledge into the basis of collective prosperity.
* By Jamile Sabatini Marques
One more Nobel Prize in Economics This confirms the importance of the government fostering innovation to generate... Knowledge-Based Economic Development (KBD). This concept represents a profound transition in the foundations of prosperity: from economies focused on industrial production and physical resources for those that value intangible assets, ...intellectual capital and the ability to learn and innovate continuously. I am pleased to see that, in 2025, Philippe Aghion, Peter Howitt, and Joel Mokyr were recognized for showing how innovation generates sustained growth—an idea that goes back to the thinking of Joseph Schumpeter, the visionary economist who, as early as 1911, argued that capitalism renews itself when the new replaces the obsolete.
I have worked in development since I entered the technology sector in 2004. Through projects, research, and interaction with innovative companies, I have witnessed firsthand how essential it is for the State to share risks with innovative entrepreneurs. It is the entrepreneur who generates new markets, new forms of consumption, and, above all, new possibilities for development. Development policies gain strength when they treat innovation as a joint effort—in which the State, the entrepreneur, and society share the risk and the learning process of the new.
Decades after Schumpeter, Elinor Ostrom, also a Nobel laureate, demonstrated that common goods thrive when managed collectively, with clear rules and trust. The same applies to knowledge and data: the more they are shared, the more value they generate. Treating data as a common good means recognizing that innovation flourishes when information circulates, when transparency encourages collaboration, and when collective learning overcomes competitive isolation.
Open data — scientific, business, and social — are the raw material for new technologies that improve quality of life, strengthen public policies, and enhance competitiveness. When researchers, entrepreneurs, and governments have access to these inputs, evidence-based solutions and new value chains emerge — the engine of Knowledge-Based Economic Development.
In my doctoral thesis, I proposed a framework: know, create, foster, innovate, and compete. These interconnected links define the virtuous cycle of development. It is up to the State to strengthen them with public policies, credit, and incentives. Fostering, therefore, is more than financing—it is investing in uncertainty, accepting that not every bet will succeed, but that each attempt generates public learning and opens space for the next cycle of growth. We can cite as examples technological hubs that, through these ecosystems, were fostered and generated economic development, such as Porto Digital, Florianópolis, among others.
Brazil already has a solid foundation: universities and centers of research excellence, active funding agencies, a vibrant startup ecosystem, and innovation environments. The challenge is to expand efforts by bringing in more funding lines, reducing collateral requirements, and facilitating access through programs, boosting the country and regional innovation ecosystems. When knowledge is treated as a common good and the State shares risks with the entrepreneur, the result is more than innovation—it is knowledge-based, inclusive, and sustainable development.
*Jamile Sabatini Marques, Director of Innovation, Development and Research at the Brazilian Association of Software Companies (ABES)
Notice: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies
Article originally published on the INOVATIVOS website: https://inovativos.com.br/artigos/fomentar-e-correr-risco-junto-o-conhecimento-como-bem-comum-para-o-desenvolvimento/
