Reports & Briefings

For brief overviews of how key technologies work and why they matter, see ITIF’s “Technology Explainer Series.”

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April 15, 2020
Most State Unemployment Websites Fail Mobile and Accessibility Tests
ITIF tested the page load speed, mobile-friendliness, and accessibility of all 50 state unemployment websites using publicly available tools. The results show that many of these sites are not just ill-suited to handle significant rises in traffic, but also poorly designed.
April 13, 2020
The Case for a National Industrial Strategy to Counter China’s Technological Rise
Further stimulus in response to the COVID-19 crisis should focus not just on short-term recovery, but also the long-term competitiveness of key technologically sophisticated, traded-sector industries. Now is the time to recognize America needs a robust industrial strategy.
April 8, 2020
ITIF Technology Explainer: What Is Facial Recognition?
Facial recognition technology uses algorithms that detect faces’ unique features, such as the distance between the eyes, to create a mathematical representation that determines their similarity.
April 6, 2020
Digital Policy for Physical Distancing: 28 Stimulus Proposals That Will Pay Long-Term Dividends
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed gaps in society’s digital readiness for social distancing. If policymakers seize the opportunity to address these gaps, they can make it easier to manage the next pandemic while providing significant long-term social and economic benefits.
April 2, 2020
Harnessing Heat: How the Federal Government Can Advance Geothermal Energy
Geothermal energy has yet to follow the trajectory of rapidly expanding, cheap renewables like wind and solar. To unlock the enormous potential of this clean, reliable source of energy, the federal government can drive innovation and address barriers to adoption.
March 31, 2020
How SBA’s Affiliation Rules for Venture-Backed Firms Will Limit the Effectiveness of the Paycheck Protection Program
The failure of small venture-backed businesses to qualify for Paycheck Protection Loans could cost more than 275,000 jobs this year directly and more 1 million jobs in total, including indirect losses. The Trump administration should waive the Small Business Administration’s “affiliation rule” in this crisis to prevent these mass layoffs and furloughs.
March 30, 2020
Energy Innovation in the FY 2021 Budget: Congress Should Lead
Lawmakers should make energy innovation a national imperative, and at least double U.S. investment in clean energy RD&D by 2025.
March 23, 2020
Why Countries Should Build an Interoperable Electronic Invoicing System Into WTO E-Commerce Negotiations
To support digital trade, countries must eliminate regulatory barriers—big and small, new and old, obvious and hidden—that prevent firms from using technology and the Internet to achieve critical economies of scale. Electronic invoices are a great example.
March 6, 2020
ITIF Technology Explainer: What Is Encryption?
Encryption plays an important role in improving data protection for businesses and consumers. The U.S. government has long invested in R&D of encryption and set standards that define best practices for commercial and government use of encryption—and it should continue this role in the future.
February 24, 2020
How Voluntary Agreements Among Key Stakeholders Help Combat Digital Piracy
Working together, firms from different parts of the digital economy can disrupt the supply side of the digital piracy equation to make it harder and costlier for illicit operators to function.

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