Nobel, more Nobel, the most Nobel : Modern economies are not built with capital or labor as much as by ideas; nearly half America’s gross domestic product is based on intellectual property, one estimate found [The Economist, Dec. 9^th 2006, p.66]. If the Nobel Prize awards are relevant measure of ideas’ manufacturers, then other leading economies have a lot to worry about: starting with mid-1940's, no country comes even close to match the USA pace of mastering the awards (see the graph on the left). But then, nowadays it is not purposeful to compare single European states with USA; the graph on the right compares the summed awards of the European Union states (EU, member states as of 2006) with those of USA. While EU has a huge head-start, the slope of the curves tells a different story: for the last 30 years, EU is achieving 1.84 award/year while USA is achieving 2.69 award/year, i.e. 46% more. This is also indicated by the falling ratio of the cumulative number of awards, EU/USA.

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