Reports & Briefings

Congress has allocated $42.5 billion to bridge America’s digital divide through the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. To achieve that goal, states and territories must carefully craft plans to use their shares of the funds to the greatest possible benefit.

This visualization tool applies letter grades to states' plans to utilize the $42.5 billion allocated by Congress to the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program.

Better evidence is needed to evaluate the impact of policy changes on new drug development. Greater availability of government data should support more rigorous evaluations to inform evidence-based policymaking.

Larger firms are generally more productive because of scale economies, but some U.S. industries still have too high a share of small firms. Policymakers should encourage, not discourage, greater consolidation in these industries.

Canada faces unprecedented challenges in innovation, productivity, and competitiveness. The first step in addressing them is to develop a clear understanding of the Canadian economy’s underlying structure and performance in each area. Policymakers must then tailor strategies for specific industries and technologies instead of focusing on principally on macro factors.

Innovation plays a critical role in improving public health and in overcoming global health challenges. The call for LATAM Health Champions, which ran from February 5 to March 5, 2024, received more than 60 applications proposing innovative health solutions to a wide range of health challenges. Here, the top 20 are highlighted.

Global data and technology governance will be challenging without cooperation on cloud trustworthiness. Policymakers should avoid simplistic assessments based on nationality and instead develop more holistic assessments based on legal and technical criteria.

China is leading in chemical production, especially basic chemicals. And while it is currently lagging behind on innovation—especially in more complex fine chemicals—all signs suggest it will catch up with the global leaders within the next decade or two.

With the gradual shift from internal combustion to electric vehicles, it is only a matter of time before the nation will have to replace gas taxes with a vehicle miles traveled system to pay for road maintenance. The most sensible way to start would be with heavy trucks.

The United States and European Union should work through the Trade and Technology Council to align their respective cybersecurity labeling programs for the Internet of Things rather than allowing IoT security to become another technical barrier to trade and technology cooperation.