Competitiveness

Is China Catching Up to the United States in Innovation?
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.
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For a menu of actionable ideas for policymakers related to competitiveness, see ITIF’s “Tech Policy To-Do List.”

Competitiveness
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April 9, 2019
The Critical Role of the NIH in Boosting Economic Competitiveness
America’s ability to compete globally in biomedical innovation is being threatened.
April 8, 2019
Is China Catching Up to the United States in Innovation?
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.
April 1, 2019
Make Way for China’s Railway
As Rob Atkinson writes for Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Margarethe Vestager’s decision to veto a merger between rail companies Alstom and Siemens shows how preventing EU firms from merging will result in weakened and shrunken European competitors.
March 28, 2019
How America Can Win the Global Talent Race
The United States has long been a magnet for the best talent in the world, particularly in science and engineering disciplines. But now, as American policymakers engage in a necessary debate about low-skill immigration, that issue has been conflated with the separate issue of high-skill STEM immigration, and the unfortunate result has been unduly harsh scrutiny and stricter limits on the latter. ITIF hosted a panel discussion exploring the controversies of the H-1B visa.
December 5, 2018
Building High-Performance SME Clusters for American Competitiveness in the 21st Century
The U.S. needs to cultivate more and better clusters of small and medium-sized (SME) manufacturing firms in order to compete in a global industry with an increased reliance on smart manufacturing technologies. Join ITIF for a morning conference exploring how digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, 3D printing, and the Internet of Things are reshaping modern manufacturing and what policymakers can do to help foster high-performance SME manufacturing clusters.
November 29, 2018
China Might Be Looking to End the Trade War. Don’t Let It Off Easy.
In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Rob Atkinson outlines the bottom-line conditions President Trump should demand from China for ending U.S.-imposed tariffs.
November 19, 2018
Venture Capital Invested in EU Technology Firms Has Fallen by More Than 50 Percent Since GDPR
Despite some wishful thinking by its proponents, it was widely predicted that GDPR would hamper European technology firms’ ability to compete globally. A recent study has validated that prediction.
November 5, 2018
Between the 1850s and 1920s, Increases in Patents Filed by Immigrants Led to Increased Patent Filings by Native Residents
According to a new study, foreign inventors facilitated native-born inventors, rather than crowding them out. Controlling for city size, a 10 percent increase in the number of patents filed by immigrants increased the number of patents filed by natives in in their respective cities by 4 percent.
October 15, 2018
Large Start-Ups Pay New Hires 9 Percent More than Comparable Established Firms
Policymakers tend to give an outsized share of attention and credit to small businesses, touting their role in entrepreneurship, but in doing so they often conflate small businesses with new businesses. Start-ups are important for their contributions to creative destruction and innovation, but small businesses are less efficient because they cannot take advantages of economies of scale.
September 24, 2018
Five Things You Thought You Knew About Big Business vs. Small Business… But Didn’t
Much of what people assume to be true about big business is completely wrong. Rob Atkinson and Michael Lind cover five of the most egregious examples in this Innovation Files post.

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