What drives economic growth? Is economic growth dead, or dying? Thomas Siems presents a model to find the factors that drive economic growth and wealth creation, and shows that while innovation is at the heart of economic growth, there are other important forces that help explain and drive long-run growth. He shows persuasive evidence that today's "fifth wave" economy is being propelled by the effective implementation of business analytics and operations research tools. And looking globally, he uses his model to present a blueprint for growth for economies at various stages of economic development. Will there be a sixth wave of innovation to reignite growth? Watch this TEDx Talk and find out.

Thomas Siems is Chief Engineering Economist and Senior Lecturer in the Lyle School of Engineering at SMU and also Assistant Vice President and Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. He has researched the productive efficiency of systems for more than 30 years and is author of the National Association for Business Economics' award-winning papers "Strengthening Globalization's Invisible Hand: What Matters Most?" (with Adam Ratner) and "Who Supplied My Cheese? Supply Chain Management in the Global Economy." Dr. Siems has received several outstanding teacher awards in the Lyle School at SMU as an educational and entertaining speaker.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx