On September 25, 2019, as the keynote speaker, Prof. Julio Elías of the Argentine University of Macroeconomics gave a lecture on “Innovators and Innovation in the Art, Literature and Wine Industry of Argentine” at the Institute of International and Area Studies (IIAS) of Tsinghua University.

At the beginning of the lecture, Prof. Julio Elías distributed a “test paper” to each participant. After a simple test, he divided the audience into two categories and pointed out that these two categories represented two types of innovators, namely experimental innovator and conceptual innovator. Then he introduced Prof. David Galenson’s research path on innovation, discussed innovators in different fields of literature, painting, wine, business and music, and deeply analyzed the performance of two innovators in the Argentine wine industry in their respective fields.

Next, some participants pointed out that in addition to their own talents, the performance of innovators is also driven by the market. Therefore, Prof. Julio Elías further discussed this issue. He shared that the development of the innovation economy cannot be separated from research investment, policy guidance and innovator drive. Only in this way can we better understand the current situation of the innovation economy.

Finally, Prof. Julio Elías also reviewed the current economy in Argentina. He pointed out that Argentina’s problem is not the existing economic crisis, but the fact that the government has been overly involved in the market and the fiscal deficit remains high, which are the urgent concerns.

After the event, students from the IIAS, School of Economics and Management and School of Public Administration at Tsinghua University and Renmin University exchanged their academic opinions with the speaker.

By Yuan Mengqi