Countries with robust IP rights and protections must recognize that new energy, new tactics, and a new strategy are needed to encourage other nations to contribute more and detract less from global innovation.

The Way Forward for Intellectual Property Internationally

Growing animus toward “Big Tech” companies and generalized opposition to technological innovation engenders support for policies that are expressly designed to inhibit it. That is deeply problematic for future progress, prosperity, and competitiveness.

A Policymaker’s Guide to the “Techlash”—What It Is and Why It’s a Threat to Growth and Progress

The rapid growth of large Internet platforms has caused some activists, scholars, and political officials to worry about their impact on competition. These concerns are largely misplaced.

Monopoly Myths: Do Internet Platforms Threaten Competition?

Focusing on mitigating speculative concerns about AI will limit its development and adoption. Policymakers should instead encourage innovation while crafting targeted solutions for specific problems if they occur.

Ten Ways the Precautionary Principle Undermines Progress in Artificial Intelligence

The European Commission has set out to ensure digital markets are “fair and contestable.” But in a paradigm shift for antitrust enforcement, its proposal would impose special regulations on a narrowly defined set of “gatekeepers.” Contrary to its intent, this will deter innovation—and hold back small and medium-sized firms—to the detriment of the economy.

The Digital Markets Act: European Precautionary Antitrust

Critics accuse big tech companies of stifling innovation by buying start-ups just to kill them or by exerting such dominance that entrepreneurs don’t want to enter their markets. Neither claim holds up to logic or evidence.

Monopoly Myths: Is Big Tech Creating “Kill Zones”?

The United States is struggling to move innovative energy technologies from discovery to scale. This gap could put the climate and U.S. investments at risk. A nonprofit foundation working with the Department of Energy could help fill the gap.

Mind the Gap: A Design for a New Energy Technology Commercialization Foundation

The president-elect’s overall approach to technology and innovation policy appears to be formulated to engage the government as an active partner alongside industry in spurring innovation—but also as a tougher regulator of many tech industries and technologies.

President-Elect Biden’s Agenda on Technology and Innovation Policy

Prohibiting companies from favoring their own products ignores all the ways it promotes competition and benefits consumers. Antitrust reforms should differentiate that pro-competitive self-preferencing from certain exclusionary practices.

“Please, Help Yourself”: Toward a Taxonomy of Self-Preferencing

Not really. Despite the measured rise in concentration in some industries, in the vast majority of markets it remains well below the levels that would normally trigger antitrust concerns.

Monopoly Myths: Are Markets Becoming More Concentrated?

Pundits and activists have looked at the reduced share of U.S. national income going to workers and have simply asserted that the cause is increased market concentration. This assessment is misplaced.

Monopoly Myths: Is Concentration Eroding Labor’s Share of National Income?

Competition authorities in the United Kingdom fear Microsoft will keep Call of Duty off Sony PlayStations if it acquires the game’s publisher. But that’s not what happened when it bought the developer of Minecraft, and there’s no reason to believe this time will be different.

What’s Past Is Prologue: Microsoft’s Acquisition of Activision Blizzard Does Not Raise Foreclosure Concerns

Antitrust advocates allege market-leading “superstar” firms—particularly in digital industries—succeed through anticompetitive conduct. But evidence shows they outperform competitors by investing in innovative technologies and global operations that create more value.

Monopoly Myths: Are Superstar Firms Stifling Competition or Just Beating It?

If Washington wants to show voters that government is doing something more than simply saying no or being ideologically dug in, then lawmakers and the administration should work to advance a set of actionable technology policy measures that would grow the U.S. economy.

The Year Ahead: Twenty-Four Ways Congress and the Biden Administration Can Advance Good Tech Policy in 2021

Watch ITIF’s Schumpeter Project on Competition Policy's event for an expert panel discussion and presentation of a new report on the challenges ahead in implementing and enforcing the DMA.

The EU’s Digital Markets Act: A Triumph of Regulation Over Innovation?

Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan is well known for her novel theories of market power in the technology and telecommunications industry. And her approach is now driving the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)’s regulatory and legal agenda. 

Many believe tech and social media firms are too dominant, but empirical analyses of market concentration and recent figures on market shares don’t support monopoly concerns. So far, the courts have not found the FTC’s arguments to be very persuasive. Something has to give. 

Join Reason for a conversation on July 25 with Thomas Hazlett and Robert Atkinson on what we’ve learned in recent antitrust debates and where we go from here. Former Chief Economist of the Federal Communications Commission and current professor of economics at Clemson University, Hazlett is also a trustee at Reason Foundation. 

Atkinson is the founder and president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, and his work includes writing on market concentration. The conversation will be moderated by Reason Foundation Vice President Adrian Moore and available online at reason.org. 

Virtual Webinar

Rob Atkinson speaks at the Reason Foundation on what we’ve learned in recent antitrust debates and where we go from here.

Differing Perspectives on Antitrust and Big Tech: What Have We Learned?

Editors’ Recommendations

The Flawed Analysis Underlying Calls for Antitrust Reform: Revisiting Lina Khan’s “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox”

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The Way Forward for Intellectual Property Internationally

A Policymaker’s Guide to the “Techlash”—What It Is and Why It’s a Threat to Growth and Progress

Monopoly Myths: Do Internet Platforms Threaten Competition?