Meghan Ostertag

R&D intensity of the United States federal government, measured as R&D investment relative to GDP, experienced a marked decline, from 0.62 percent to 0.28 percent.

Over the past 26 years, researchers on the International Space Station have produced roughly 4,000 research papers and have helped to develop treatments for several diseases, including cancer, Alzheimer’s, and heart disease.

The competitiveness of the auto industry of the United States has waxed and waned over the past 60 years and is clearly not the globally dominant behemoth it once was. To bolster the industry’s competitiveness, policymakers first must understand why it has faltered and the challenges it faces moving forward.

China should come into full and immediate compliance with its WTO commitments; otherwise, as a last resort, the U.S. government should revoke China’s PNTR status. But policymakers should mitigate second-order effects, particularly on national power industries.

As of 2022, China is producing over 35 percent of the publications in top-tier journals, up from nearly zero in 1980. At the same time, the United States has seen its share fall rapidly to about 25 percent.

Sales of Chinese hybrids and plug-in hybrids in Europe increased by a factor of 14 between August 2024 and August 2025

The conflict in the Middle East, which has blocked shipments through the Strait of Hormuz and led to the destruction of energy infrastructure throughout the region, has increased the cost of commodities such as oil, gas, and fertilizer. This price shock has affected the entire world, raising the cost of food, energy, and transportation.

To win the techno-economic competition with China, America must be able to assess the factors impacting the global competitiveness of its advanced-technology industries. Using the auto industry as a template, U.S. competitiveness has faltered considerably.

A report estimates that in the 149 American counties that had semiconductor activity prior to the passage of the U.S. Innovation and Competitiveness Act (USICA), the precursor bill to the CHIPS Act, employment increased by 110 jobs per county, equivalent to a 12.7 percent increase in employment.

A study of a 2010s expansion of high-speed broadband across Turkey found that that access to high-speed Internet increased formal employment and wages, with the greatest effects concentrated in telework-possible positions and among women.

The pharmaceutical and medicine industry has seen its productivity decline by 2.4 percent annually between 2014 and 2024, one of the worst performances among U.S. manufacturing industries.

In 2025, more than one-third of individuals (36.8 percent) used generative AI tools such as ChatGPT or Claude.