Competitiveness

A Policymaker’s Guide to the “Techlash”—What It Is and Why It’s a Threat to Growth and Progress
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.
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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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October 28, 2019
A Policymaker’s Guide to the “Techlash”—What It Is and Why It’s a Threat to Growth and Progress
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.
October 23, 2019
To Understand Chinese Innovation Success, Look No Further Than Government R&D Subsidies
Nearly 25 percent of all R&D expenditures in China come in the form of government subsidies to firms. It would be ideal if China dramatically reduced these innovation subsidies so American workers in innovation industries would face a level playing field, but the chances of that happening are slim to none. It is time for the federal government to step up its game and provide significantly more support for industrial R&D.
August 19, 2019
Fact of the Week: When Countries Double Immigration of Inventors From Places That Specialize in a Given Technology, They are 25 to 50 Percent More Likely to Produce new Patents in That Technology After 10 Years
When skilled migrants come to a new country, they bring both expertise in their fields and connections to experts in their home countries, increasing the likelihood that they will produce new inventions in the fields in which their home countries excel. New research has provided the broadest estimation of this effect, examining immigration between 135 countries and patents in 651 technological categories from 1990 to 2010.
July 8, 2019
Fact of the Week: The Chinese Government Provided Approximately $132 Billion in Export Financing in 2018
Until the last decade, major nations primarily provided financing to domestic exporters only as a lender of last resort. Since then, official medium- and long-term export crediting has more than doubled from $55 billion in 2008 to $129 billion in 2018.
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.

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