Among Irish firms, a 10 percent increase in R&D investment per employee raised productivity by 12 percent, writes John Wu in Innovation Files.

Europe
Foreign-owned Spanish manufacturing firms were 15 percent more productive from 1998 to 2012 than locally-owned firms, writes John Wu in Innovation Files.
“4.0 innovation” is something both sides of the Atlantic should not only welcome, but do everything possible to accelerate.
German laws criminalizing hate speech and defamation are already some of the most restrictive in Europe, writes Nick Wallace in The Local. But a new bill going through the Bundestag, intended to combat hate speech, will create powerful incentives for online platforms to suppress content that is not even illegal, and inhibit the development of data-driven tools that offer more sophisticated ways of fighting extremism.
In the EU, increasing R&D investment by one percent creates 30 percent more employment in high-tech firms than medium-tech firms, writes John Wu in Innovation Files.
As manned Dutch fuel stations were automated from 2005 to 2011, their fuel prices dropped by 1 to 2 percent, writes John Wu in Innovation Files.
The raison d’etre for the EU’s Digital Single Market was to incorporate the digital economy into EU integration. But from its very launch, the strategy always went far beyond that, imposing too many restrictions on new technologies, writes Nick Wallace in EU Observer.
ITIF's Center for Data Innovation has responded to the European Parliament’s public consultation on Civil Law Rules and Robotics.
ITIF's Center for Data Innovation has responded to the European Commission’s online questionnaire regarding its Building the European Data Economy package.
Join ITIF's Center for Data Innovation for a conversation with leading experts from industry and government about the future of smart cities and the steps policymakers should take to lead the way in the development of smart cities.
In comments to the Joint Committee of the European Supervisory Authorities, ITIF’s Center for Data Innovation welcomed a recent discussion paper, which presents a largely accurate view of the benefits of big data in the financial sector.
To support the single market, the European Union should remove legal obstacles to data flows within the EU and relax the rules in the General Data Protection Regulation governing transfers to non-EU countries, writes Nick Wallace in EU Reporter.
Data-rich companies are not a threat to competition, but rather an important source of innovation, which policymakers should encourage, not limit.
A trade association representing privacy specialists estimates that businesses around the world will have to appoint at least 75,000 data protection officers to help them comply with the many complex requirements of the EU’s incoming General Data Protection Regulation. Filling these positions will be costly and difficult, and it will divert money away from investments that would create more productive jobs and benefit customers through lower prices and better product features—including privacy-enhancing ones—says Nick Wallace in City A.M.
Due to unwarranted concerns about privacy, policymakers have restricted the data vehicles will share with emergency services even though additional information could further improve safety without impacting privacy or raising costs, writes Nick Wallace in EurActiv.
While fraud prevention is important, data-driven approaches offer far more sophisticated measures to address this goal than the European Banking Authority’s recently proposed rules, writes Nick Wallace in Banking Technology.
The difficulty of identifying fake news combined with threats of fines would impose significant costs on social media companies, particularly startups, and likely result in the removal of legitimate articles, such as satirical pieces, write Nick Wallace and Alan McQuinn in The Local.
France's attempt to force Google to expand the country's “right to be forgotten” rules to all users worldwide would interfere with other nations' sovereignty, write Alan McQuinn and Daniel Castro in Computerworld.
Between 2004 and 2012, employment in Spanish firms that released novel products into the market grew 1.5 percentage points faster than firms not engaged in product innovation, writes John Wu in Innovation Files.
French manufacturing firms located in more densely populated areas are 6.5 percent more productive than those located in less densely populated areas, writes John Wu in Innovation Files.
A new paper from the Center for European Economic Research finds that innovation leads to more jobs, not fewer, writes John Wu in Innovation Files.
If German firms more provided its workers mobile Internet access, they could increase productivity by 15 percent, writes John Wu in Innovation Files.
Join ITIF's Center for Data Innovation for a panel discussion on the strategies countries are using to support the Internet of Things, the early European successes with this technology, and the opportunities for policymakers in the EU and member states to support the development and deployment of smart technologies.
Businesses in the European Union lag U.S. businesses not just in the amount they invest in R&D, but also in their capabilities to transform these investments into productivity gains, writes John Wu in Innovation Files.
Stephen Ezell presented on the impact of digitialization and robotitization at the OECD’s "The Next Production Revolution" conference in Stockholm, Sweden on November 18, 2016.