Hermann Remsperger: Financing innovation Welcome address by Professor Hermann Remsperger, Member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank, at the 6th Bundesbank Spring Conference “Financing Innovation”, Eltville, 30 April 2004. *  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the pleasure of welcoming you to the 6th Bundesbank Spring Conference.
The focus of this year’s conference is on financing of innovations. The importance of innovation, or in a more broader sense technological progress, for economic growth has been recognised early on in the works of Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus or Karl Marx - to name the most prominent.