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Economic Theory

As nations engage in a race for global advantage in innovation, ITIF champions a new policy paradigm that ensures businesses and national economies can compete successfully by spurring public and private investment in foundational areas such as research, skills, and 21st century infrastructure. Our work in the realm of economic theory assesses the negative impact of conventional neo-Keynesianism and neoclassical economics on the 21st century economy and promoting “Innovation Economics” as a sounder alternative.

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Speed Up America, Slow Down China, or Both? The Key Strategic Question for the 21st Century

The reality is that if America does not do both—speed itself up, and slow China down—then it will likely lose the techno-economic race in the advanced, traded-sector industries that are most strategically important for the country’s dual-use industrial base and national security.

More Publications and Events

August 28, 2023|Op-Eds & Contributed Articles

The Real Contest With China

The rivalry between the United States and China has significant diplomatic, military, and ideological aspects, but its most important dimensions are technological and economic.

July 20, 2023|Reports & Briefings

The National Economic Council Gets It Wrong on the Roles of Big and Small Firms in U.S. Innovation

A new White House report insinuates that small firms are America’s true innovators. Advancing this narrative makes it easier to advance an anticorporate antitrust agenda, including banning all mergers. However, scholarly studies and data do not support the administration’s premise.

June 27, 2023|Op-Eds & Contributed Articles

Slouching Towards Utopia

As Rob Atkinson writes in Regulation, Piketty, Gordon, and DeLong all argue that economic growth is no longer an engine of widespread prosperity. This is a big reason for their books’ acclaim: rejecting growth and markets is now de rigueur among much of the Western intelligentsia.

June 27, 2023|Blogs

Productivity Growth Still Benefits American Workers; Saying It Doesn’t Reduces Support for Technological Innovation

For virtually our entire history, Americans have supported increased productivity, even as it led to some worker displacement, because they have understood that productivity is the sin quo non of increased wages and living standards. Unfortunately, a dangerous myth has emerged over the last decade that productivity and wage growth are decoupled.

May 17, 2023|Events

The Great Debate Over Technology and Prosperity

ITIF hosted a spirited debate between ITIF President Rob Atkinson and economist Simon Johnson, author of the new book Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity.

May 10, 2023|Blogs

Concentrated Markets Are More Productive

Strengthening antitrust laws purely based on a big-is-bad ethos will not benefit consumers and, in many circumstances, will impede the most effective businesses from expanding.

April 27, 2023|Events

Reviving America’s Hamiltonian Tradition to Win the Economic Competition With China

Please join ITIF for an all-day conference with leading experts and policymakers to explore why and how Washington can look to Hamiltonianism for guidance in how to win the techno-economic contest with China.

April 3, 2023|Blogs

Data Is Not Oil, Bacon, or Gold: An Actual Measure of Data as an Asset

The struggle to understand data leads to bad analogies—that it is the new oil, the new bacon, or the new gold—and to bad government policies, as policymakers can’t make an informed cost-benefit analysis of digital policies, such as privacy, cybersecurity, digital trade, or innovation.

March 10, 2023|Op-Eds & Contributed Articles

How Should Allies Respond to China’s Technology Competition?

The recent alteration of the global geopolitical environment has brought into stark reality the weaknesses of long-running economic shifts (and proactive actions) that have favoured China—giving it market dominance and trade leverage throughout industries and supply chains. The future is going to be anything but certain, and Australia, the United States and their allies must be prepared.

March 9, 2023|Op-Eds & Contributed Articles

How ‘National Developmentalism’ Built America

Embracing national developmentalism will be critical to enabling America to meet the existential challenge that is China.

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