Most venture capital funds are too short-termist and exit-driven to deal with the highly uncertain and lengthy innovation process.

There is a lot of flesh to be put on the bones - but there is at least an opening for a more pragmatic, less ideological debate about how to build economies that work for people, within the limits of our planet.

Real median household incomes in the U.S. were basically the same in 1989 as in 2014. But we are also seeing similar challenges in the U.K. in the stagnation of real wages.

If we look at Germany's infrastructure policy, it has been driven by its mission-oriented focus on green infrastructure. This affects both innovation and infrastructure, old industries and new. The German steel industry, for example, has adapted to the policy by lowering its material content through a 'repurpose, reuse and recycle' strategy.

Once we admit that the public sector takes an immense amount of risk along the entire innovation chain, it becomes crucial to find ways to share both risks and rewards.

Too many politicians seem to reach for 'infrastructure' as the default answer to investment, as if roads and bridges were the answer to everything. Even the IMF and the World Bank seem to mainly offer infrastructure spending as an alternative to austerity, although they are right to focus on the need for investment.

Green is not just about renewable energy. It's also about creating a new direction for the whole economy. This requires government to step up, not step back, creating the kinds of mission-oriented public organizations that will enable us to tackle climate change - as ambitious as those that got us to the moon. It also requires the financial sector to be less short-term since we know that short-term finance has distorted incentives and directions in areas like biotechnology.