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 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

In the decades since 1980, there has been a global trend in which income inequality between countries has decreased while income inequality within countries has increased, and many have attributed the latter to technological innovation.

Fact of the Week: A 10 Percent Increase in Patents Increases Income Equality

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

Fact of the Week: For Every 10 Percent Increase in R&D Investment per Employee, Irish Firm Productivity Increases by 12 Percent

With proposals to ban everything from private cafeterias to electric scooters, cities like San Francisco have been lashing out at tech workers, because the popular perception has been that they drive up prices of everything, especially housing, for everyone else around them. But to the extent that these cost-of-living increases are real and intrinsic to the tech sector, they are more than outweighed by the improved wages the tech industry generates.

Fact of the Week: A 10 Percent Increase in Tech Employment Increases a City's Wages for Other Jobs

A recent working paper found that manufacturing firms, a 1 percent increase in techies’ share of wages was associated with a 4 percent increase in TFP in the next year.

Fact of the Week: A 1 Percent Increase in STEM Technicians Raises Manufacturing Firms’ Productivity by 4 Percent

A November 2023 working paper found that a 10 percent increase in digital connectivity reduced trade costs by about 1.5–2 percent.

Fact of the Week: A 10 Percent Increase in Digital Connectivity Reduces Trade Costs by 2 Percent

Restrictive data policies coming into effect in Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Vietnam will measurably increase import costs and reduce trade volumes, undermining the broader economic role of data. Policymakers should change course or else be left behind in the race for digital development.

The Cost of Data Localization Policies in Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Vietnam

Innovation ecosystems are increasingly complex and diverse, but there are common markers of core strength. In this report, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, the German Economic Institute, the Institute for Competitiveness, and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute benchmark 96 states and regions across Germany, Italy, the United States, and Canada.

The Transatlantic Subnational Innovation Competitiveness Index

Widely adopted intangibles help lower firms’ marginal costs, which helps consolidated firms pass along lower final costs to consumers.

Fact of the Week: A 10-Percentage-Point Increase in Concentration Corresponds to a 2.3 Percent Reduction in Industry Prices

America has lost 70 percent of its semiconductor manufacturing capacity over the last three decades. That serves as a harsh lesson for policymakers: Failing to maintain a supportive policy environment could set up other high-tech industries to falter, too.

Going, Going, Gone? To Stay Competitive in Biopharmaceuticals, America Must Learn From Its Semiconductor Mistakes

A new study examining the poverty and rates of entrepreneurship in every Metropolitan Statistical Area in the U.S. from 2005 to 2015 finds that a 10% increase in an area's entrepreneurship in traded industries reduces its poverty rate by an average of 2.2%.

Fact of the Week: A 10 Percent Increase in Entrepreneurship in Traded Industries Decreases Poverty by 2.2 Percent

Prior to last week’s progress toward an interim trade deal with China, the United States had repeatedly delayed the expansion of tariffs on Chinese goods to most finished products. This was out of concern that such an escalation would hit U.S. consumers harder than existing tariffs on the intermediate goods that serve as inputs for companies to make their final products.

Fact of the Week: A 10 Percent Reduction in Tariffs on Intermediate Goods Increases Productivity Growth by 1.9 Percent, an Impact 6.5 Times Greater Than the Same Reduction on Final Goods

Defense spending is the main source of public R&D investment in the United States, totaling $78 billion in 2016. A new study examines the impacts of defense R&D investment by leveraging the dramatic increases in defense R&D investment across the OECD in the years following 2001.

Fact of the Week: A 10 Percent Increase in Public Investment in Defense R&D Increases Private R&D Investment by 4.3 Percent

Since 2011, the U.S. government has spent over $400 million to provide broadband Internet access to 1.6 million people. A recent study investigated the impact that policies like these can have by examining the construction of broadband infrastructure across China, finding that every 10 percent increase in a regions’s infrastructure increased firms’ productivity by 1.1 percent and workers’ wages by 4.2 percent.

Fact of the Week: A 10 Percent Increase in Intangible Assets Increases MFP Growth By Up To 0.46 Percent

Related Search Content

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

The Digital Markets Act: European Precautionary Antitrust

Fact of the Week: A 10 Percent Increase in Patents Increases Income Equality