Southeast Asian nations significantly outperform the rest of the world in wage-controlled robot adoption, while Europe and the United States lag significantly behind.
Mid-band spectrum will be crucial for next-generation networks, so it is important that the FCC moves quickly to transition portions of this spectrum to more efficient use.
A considerable share of biopharma research “spills over” and contributes to knowledge discovery and drug development overall, not just in individual firms’ labs.
To restore robust productivity growth, Europe must fully embrace information and communication technologies (ICT) throughout its economy.
Connected and autonomous vehicles rely on IT hardware and software, an area where the United States has a competitive advantage globally. Congress and the administration should help U.S. industry press that advantage not with auto tariffs, but with more robust innovation policies.
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.
There is no legitimate case for abandoning a 40-year-old consensus on how to apply antitrust policy in favor of a vague, hard-to-enforce alternative that represents an amalgam of conflicting goals, some of which would work against economic progress and the national interest.
Duty-free access to U.S. markets represents a major benefit for many trading partners that clearly do not provide fair and reasonable market access or treatment of U.S. firms and their goods and services.
Policymakers should not write off a permissive prioritization regime in net neutrality legislation. With simple rules, paid prioritization can make the Internet work much better for some services without making others worse off or harming the Internet’s characteristic openness.
There’s no magic bullet to ensure firms will respond to environmental regulation by innovating. But a literature review shows certain conditions that will raise that likelihood, pointing the way to some important rules of thumb for policymakers.
Data protection regulations are often falsely described as means to increase consumer trust, and therefore technology adoption and use. Policymakers should be wary of those making this claim without evidence.
Trump’s approach to tariffs has drawn widespread criticism, sparking a debate in which partisans have made all sorts of claims and counter-claims. This briefing sets the record straight on 10 important points of fact.
A menu of actionable ideas for the Trump administration and 115th Congress to foster innovation, growth, and progress.
Instead of overregulating, governments should adopt a policy framework based on the principle of “algorithmic accountability” to promote innovation while holding human operators responsible for harmful outcomes.
There is ample room for a bipartisan compromise that would simultaneously lock in noncontroversial bright-line protections, end the absurd back-and-forth on FCC jurisdiction, and secure funding to help close the digital divide.
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.
Twenty-five case studies underscore how innovators in developing countries—often enabled by robust IP rights—are achieving advances in life sciences and healthcare that benefit people around the world.
The digitalization of manufacturing is changing how products are designed, fabricated, used, and serviced, just as it’s transforming the operations, processes, and energy footprint of factories and supply chains.
America’s lead in life sciences is being challenged. Other countries are aggressively seeking to attract and grow companies with innovation-based tax incentives, a range of firm-specific enticements, increased government research funding, improved IP protections, and streamlined regulatory approval processes. The federal government should act to ensure U.S. life sciences remain competitive.
In a report for the Canadian government ahead of the G7 Ministerial on Innovation and Employment, ITIF discusses why the coming technology wave is a progressive force G7 nations should embrace.
Rather than slow down technological disruption to protect a small number of workers at the expense of the vast majority who are benefiting, policymakers should focus on doing significantly more to help those who are displaced transition successfully into new jobs and occupations.
Most competitiveness strategies focus on broad measures such as improving the business environment or supporting better factor inputs for firms. While necessary, these steps do not constitute an effective competitiveness strategy. Policymakers must go much deeper.
The number of technology-based start-ups surged 47 percent in the last decade. These firms still account for a relatively small share of all businesses, but they have an outsized impact on economic growth, because they provide better-paying, longer-lasting jobs than other start-ups, and they contribute more to innovation, productivity, and competitiveness.
China’s systematic mercantilism is a threat to the U.S. economy and the very soul of the global trading system. America cannot respond with either flaccid appeasement or economic nationalism; it must assemble an international coalition that pressures China to stop rigging markets and start competing on fair terms.
Contrary to popular perceptions, the labor market is not experiencing unprecedented technological disruption. In fact, occupational churn in the United States is at a historic low. It is time stop worrying and start accelerating productivity with more technological innovation.
While data-driven innovation is a global phenomenon, some regions are better poised to enjoy the resulting benefits because they have invested in and supported the conditions necessary to succeed in the data economy. This is also true within the United States.
A growing number of countries are making it more expensive and time consuming, if not illegal, to transfer data overseas. This reduces economic growth and undercuts social value.
Productivity is the key to improving living standards—so policymakers should ignore conventional economists who say there is little government can do about it and instead make it the principal goal of economic policy.
America’s innovation-driven, high-tech economy isn’t concentrated around a few hubs like Silicon Valley; it is widely diffused—and every state and congressional district has a stake in its success.