In response to the demands of World War II, America generated an impressive amount of innovation in a short time span. Policymakers look back on this record as a model to aspire to, claiming that we “need a new Manhattan Project” to tackle the looming crises of the present. So what lessons should we take away from World War II-era innovation policy? On today’s episode, I discuss this question with Daniel P. Gross.

Daniel is an assistant professor at Duke's Fuqua School of Business, and he’s also a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He’s the author of several papers examining innovation policy in the World War II era, the most recent of which is "Organizing Crisis Innovation: Lessons from World War II," which he co-authored along with Bhaven Sampat.