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Innovation is fundamental to economic growth. As pointed out by Solow (1956), Abramovitz (1962), Denison (1962), and others more than half a century ago, most of economic growth is attributable to innovation rather than to increased inputs of resources such as labor, capital, and raw materials. As a consequence, promoting innovation is arguably one of the most important tasks for government policy. The task in this chapter is to explain how transparency of innovation policy contributes to economic growth, and hence why it is important. Transparency may be defined as the absence of asymmetric information. One party (such as the seller in a market) usually has better information about the product involved in the transaction than the other party (the buyer). As in other policy domains, transparency with respect to innovation policy has several dimensions, including openness, communication, and accountability. Transparency refers to the extent to which policymakers (the “sellers”) provide clear information to guide decisions by individuals and organizations—the “buyers”—and are held accountable for policies in their policy domain. Lack of clarity of policy goals, how they are to be achieved, and how progress is to be measured make for non-transparency. As described in the introductory chapter, the premise of this volume is that the main engine of economic growth is technological change resulting from investments by people who respond intentionally and rationally to market incentives, and that the outcome of investment decisions is influenced by the institutional environment in a broad sense.