Economic Theory
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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.