To support digital trade, countries must eliminate regulatory barriers—big and small, new and old, obvious and hidden—that prevent firms from using technology and the Internet to achieve critical economies of scale. Electronic invoices are a great example.
Working together, firms from different parts of the digital economy can disrupt the supply side of the digital piracy equation to make it harder and costlier for illicit operators to function.
Separating the cost of biopharmaceutical research and development from the final market price of medicines would misalign incentives, raise bureaucratic costs, and limit innovation.
Countries that value an open, competitive digital economy should use surveys to improve quantitative analysis of cross-border data flows, because policymakers can’t effectively manage and address barriers to digital trade unless they can measure it.
As the House and Senate consider comprehensive energy legislation, these 10 priorities have already won the support of large bipartisan majorities at the committee level in at least one chamber. They should form the nucleus of a bipartisan energy package that gets signed into law this year.
The United States, the EU, and Japan must band together in stronger trilateral partnership to pressure China into rolling back the mercantilist trade practices it uses to grow advanced, innovation-driven industries.
An examination of the scholarly literature shows that China’s mercantilist-powered economic rise and trade expansion have slowed the progress of innovation in the global economy—particularly in North America and Europe.
Policymakers should seek to maximize the benefits of Internet openness while maintaining carefully designed guardrails that reduce the Internet’s most clearly harmful uses.
The federal government should take aggressive steps to spur the development of more tech hubs in America’s heartland by identifying promising metro areas and helping them transform into self-sustaining innovation centers.
Tax incentives can play an important role in accelerating the innovations needed for a low-carbon future, but only if the incentives reward innovators rather than support well-entrenched incumbents.
The most important policy to boost economic opportunity is one that focuses on shifting the occupational mix toward fewer low-wage jobs and more middle-wage ones.
Europe must harness the power of digital innovation not just to increase economic growth and expand prosperity, but also to address important societal challenges related to the environment, public health, transportation, and other pressing concerns.
The Global Mercantilist Index, ranking 60 nations on 18 variables ranging from market access and forced localization to currency manipulation and intellectual property protections, finds that China is the world’s most innovation-mercantilist nation.
Contrary to common belief, enterprise automation is not a cause for alarm, but instead a societal imperative. Modern nations will need all the productivity they can get to address today’s ever-more-resource-constrained challenges.
Growing animus toward “Big Tech” companies and generalized opposition to technological innovation engenders support for policies that are expressly designed to inhibit it. That is deeply problematic for future progress, prosperity, and competitiveness.
The use of robotics will increase productivity and has the potential to bring more manufacturing production work back to developed countries. As productivity increases, labor is likely to receive a significant share of the benefits.
Despite concern over climate change, global carbon emissions continue to rise. Clean energy innovation is needed to reverse the trend. It is time for Mission Innovation member nations to make good on their commitment to double clean energy RD&D.
Policymakers should enable entry into the broadband market, but avoid undermining the dynamism of the sector by actively promoting additional competitors.
Since 2015, 24 nations and the EU have joined “Mission Innovation,” pledging to double public investments in energy RD&D and collaborate on key innovation challenges. This report seeks to provide accountability for these commitments and lay the foundation for more ambitious measures.
The United States leads the race for global advantage in artificial intelligence, at least for the time being, with China coming in second and the EU lagging behind. But China is poised to challenge U.S. dominance in coming years as it undertakes bold AI initiatives.
China is challenging the United States for market share and jobs in one of the highest value-added, most innovation-intensive industries—and the risks extend not just to the U.S. economy, but to global biopharma innovation.
A report by ITIF for the MAPI Foundation, a research subsidiary of the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation (MAPI).
A survey of allied think tanks summarizes what 23 nations and the EU are doing best when it comes to innovation policy, and where there are the greatest opportunities to improve. In many cases, the successes can serve as model policies for other countries to adopt.
The EU has an opportunity to make major strides in the next wave of digital transformation. But it will need to adopt a forward-looking policy perspective that focuses on the benefits of connectivity, automation, and smart systems for Europe’s economy and society.
Seven case studies showcase how IP rights are enabling innovators in Latin America to help solve some of the greatest global health challenges.
If China were only a copier, then the competitive threat to advanced economies would be limited. But there is no reason to believe China won’t follow the path of “Asian tigers” that rapidly evolved from copiers to innovators, which poses a serious threat.
This provocative new book now available from The MIT Press shows small businesses are not the drivers of our prosperity. Big firms are better for job creation, productivity, innovation, and most other economic benefits. Governments should stop tipping the scales toward small and adopt “size neutral” policies that encourage companies of all sizes to grow.
With nearly three dozen new additions, the updated “Tech Policy To-Do List” now provides a menu of more than 150 actionable ideas for Congress and the administration to foster innovation, growth, and progress.
The next wave of digital innovation is coming. Countries can welcome it, prepare for it, and ride it to new heights of innovation and prosperity, or they can ignore the changing tide and miss the wave.
5G, AI, IoT, and more: In a reader-friendly series of two-pagers, ITIF provides overviews of important technologies that are likely to have a profound impact on the global economy and modern society.