Articles by Ian Clay
Fact of the Week: Improvements to Broadband Speed and Adoption Contributed $1.3 Trillion to US GDP Between 2010 and 2020
Raul Katz and Juan Jung, “The Contribution of Fixed Broadband to the Economic Growth of the United States Between 2010 and 2020,” (Telecom Advisory Services LLC, 2022). Economists from Telecom Advisory Services estimate that greater broadband adoption and faster speeds contributed $1.3 trillion to U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) between 2010 and 2020.
Fact of the Week: China’s Youth Unemployment Rate Reaches Its Highest Level on Record in April
Claire Fu, “1 in 5 Young Chinese Is Jobless, and Millions More Are About to Graduate,” , May 19, 2023. 20.4 percent of China’s population aged 16 to 24 years old (not including full-time students) were unemployed in April, which is the highest rate since the Chinese government started tracking the statistic in 2018.
Fact of the Week: Two-Thirds of US Adults Think the Government Should Encourage the Production of Wind and Solar Power
Source: Alec Tyson, Cary Funk, and Brian Kennedy, “What the data says about Americans’ views of climate change,” , April 18, 2023. In a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center last month, 66 percent of respondents said they believe the U.S. government should encourage wind and solar power production.
Fact of the Week: India’s Population is Set To Overtake China’s This Month
| April 24, 2023 Source: Shan Li and Liyan Qi, “India’s Population Surpasses China’s, Shifting the World’s ‘Center of Gravity,’” , April 14, 2023. The United Nations estimates that India’s population will reach 1.429 billion at the end of 2023, compared to China’s estimated population of 1.426 billion. India’s population is thus projected to surpass that of China, and many demographers estimate that this will take place this month (if it has not already).
Fact of the Week: US Ranks 10th Among OECD Countries in Share of Employees With AI-Related Skills
| April 17, 2023 Source: Andrew Green and Lucas Lamby, “The supply, demand and characteristics of the AI workforce across OECD countries,” OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers No. 287, February 2023. A recent Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) working paper analyzes the size and demographics of the “AI workforce” in 24 OECD nations.
Fact of the Week: US Ranks 12th Among Leading Markets in Share of Mid-Band Spectrum Allocated to Exclusive Licenses
By Ian Clay and Jessica Dine | April 10, 2023 Source: Janette Stewart, Chris Nickerson, and Juliette Welham, “Comparison of total mobile spectrum in different markets,” (Analysys Mason, September 2022). The Federal Communications Commission has auctioned off 270 MHz of mid-band radio spectrum (between 3 GHz and 7 GHz) to exclusive licensed use.
Data is Not Oil, Bacon, or Gold: An Actual Measure of Data as an Asset
Data is central to today’s economy, yet its economic value is unknown. Traditional economic statistics (and stock market prices) do a poor job of capturing the value of data held by firms. The struggle to understand data leads to bad analogies—that it is the new oil, the new bacon, or the new gold—and to bad government policies, as policymakers can’t make an informed cost-benefit analysis of digital policies, such as privacy, cybersecurity, digital trade, or innovation.
Fact of the Week: Apprenticeships in the US Increased by 66 Percent Between 2011 and 2021
| April 3, 2023 Source: U.S. Department of Labor, FY 2021 Data and Statistics (Registered Apprenticeship National Results Fiscal Year 2021; accessed March 31, 2023). Between 2011 and 2021, the number of active apprenticeships in the United States increased from 357,692 to 593,690, a 66 percent increase. Moreover, between 2010 and 2020, the number of undergraduates enrolled at U.S. universities fell by over 12 percent.
Each Industrial Robot Installed in Recent Years Created Between 13 and 16 Jobs
| March 27, 2023 Source: John Chung and Yong Suk Lee, “The Evolving Impact of Robots on Jobs,” , March 2023, 76(2), 290–319. In a recently published paper, economists Jon Chung and Yong Suk Lee found that robot adoption has been associated with higher levels of employment and wages in recent years.
Fact of the Week: The Share of Job Postings in the US Allowing Remote and Hybrid Work Arrangements Has More Than Tripled Since 2019
| March 13, 2023 Source: Stephen Hansen et al., “Remote Work Across Jobs, Companies, and Space,” , no. 31007, March 2023. According to a recent working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the share of job postings in the United States saying new employees could work from home at least one day per week increased from about 4 percent in 2019 to 14 percent in early 2023. Moreover, the share has actually increased steadily since the pandemic started.
Fact of the Week: Fundraising by Venture Capital Firms in Q4 2022 Was at Its Lowest Level Since 2015
Source: Berber Jin, " Venture Funding Hits Nine-Year Low," The Wall Street Journal, February 20, 2023. Comment: Venture capital (VC) firms raised $20.6 billion in the fourth quarter of last year, which is the lowest amount since the third quarter of 2015 ($20.4 billion), according to data from Preqin. VC fundraising reached its quarterly peak in the first quarter of last year with firms raising $70.4 billion; however, the figure has dropped each quarter since then.
China Exporter-United States Importer
The global economy has evolved in troubling ways, at least from the U.S. perspective. In 2021, the United States accounted for a whopping 78 percent of the total trade deficit among industrial-based, deficit-running nations. In other words, America was the importer of last resort for much of the world, buying cars, machine tools, drugs, computers, and the like and giving T-bills in exchange.
China Surpassed the United States in Industrial Robot Density in 2021
| February 27, 2023 “China overtakes US in robot density,” International Federation of Robotics, December 5, 2022. According to the latest report by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), China surpassed the United States in industrial robot density in 2021. IFR defines industrial robot density as a country’s number of industrial robots installed per 10,000 manufacturing workers.
Recent U.S. Manufacturing Employment Growth Hides the Sector’s Abysmal Productivity Performance
Over the last two years, the U.S. economy has added 830,000 manufacturing jobs. At first glance, this suggests a renewed strength in manufacturing. In reality, it masks a new weakness: productivity decline. Productivity (measured in real output per hour of labor) in the manufacturing sector is lower today than two years ago.
Fact of the Week: 55 Percent of People Were Not Aware of the COVID-Era Program To Subsidize Internet Adoption for Low-Income Consumers
| February 21, 2023 Source: Linda Hardesty, “AT&T survey finds most consumers aren’t aware of broadband subsidies,” Fierce Telecom, January 26, 2022. An AT&T survey conducted in 21 states showed that as of October 2021, most consumers were not aware of the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) program. The survey showed that older consumers and minority consumers were less likely to be aware of the EBB program. Moreover, awareness was lower among consumers without an Internet connection.
Estimated State-Level Employment Impact of Enhancing Federal R&D Tax Incentives
KEY TAKEAWAYS Recent changes to federal tax law prevent firms from expensing the full value of investments in R&D in the first year they incur the cost. Restoring full expensing would create 81,000 direct jobs nationally, doubling the tax credit rates would create 188,000 direct jobs, and enacting both policies would create 269,000 jobs. Congress should enhance federal R&D tax incentives by restoring full, first-year expensing of R&D expenditures and doubling the R&D credit rates.
Fact of the Week: OpenAI’s ChatGPT User Base Has Grown Faster Than TikTok’s or Instagram’s
| February 13, 2023 Source: Krystal Hu, “ChatGPT sets record for fastest-growing user base—analyst note,” Reuters, February 2, 2023. Commentary: Launched November 30, 2022, OpenAI’s ChatGPT had 57 million users by the end of December and likely reached 100 million monthly active users by the end of January, according to investment bank UBS.
Time For Congress to Beef Up Funding for DIU’s National Security Innovation Capital Program
At the height of the Cold War, perhaps the most important U.S. national mission was to drive military innovation to ensure that the Soviet Union’s numerical superiority (in terms of soldiers and weapons) would not translate into superiority on the battlefield.
Fact of the Week: Enhanced Patent Protections Led to Increased Innovation and Productivity in the US Agricultural Sector
| February 6, 2023 Source: Jacob Mascona, “Flowers of Invention: Patent Protection and Productivity Growth in US Agriculture,” November 2022. In 1985, patent protections for certain plant biotechnologies were introduced, depending on the plant’s reproductive structure. In a recent working paper, economist Jacob Mascona reviewed data on the technological development of affected (receiving the protections) and unaffected (not receiving the protections) plants.
Fact of the Week: US Manufacturing Labor Productivity Fell by 2.8 Percent Between 2011 and 2021
Source: United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, Manufacturing Sector: Labor Productivity for All Employed Persons (Output per Hour, retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; accessed January 27, 2023). Commentary: U.S. manufacturing labor productivity (measured in output per hour of labor) increased 43 percent between 2001 and 2011.
Wake Up, America: China Is Overtaking the United States in Innovation Capacity
KEY TAKEAWAYS China is positioned to evolve from an imitator to an innovator, following a path blazed by its Asian Tiger neighbors. It has already shown itself capable of leading the world in a number of advanced technologies such as supercomputers and high-speed rail. China’s potential for innovation threatens the market share of the United States and allied nations in high-value-added, advanced industries, which are important to U.S. prosperity and security.
Fact of the Week: Key Industries Are the Most Affected by the Elimination of Full Expensing of R&D Activity
| January 17, 2023 Source: Alex Muresianu, “Return to R&D Expensing Crucial for Manufacturing and Technology Investment,” (Tax Foundation, December 2022). Commentary: Starting last year, businesses are no longer allowed to fully deduct their research and development (R&D) expenditures from their federally taxable income in the first year. Instead, they must amortize the expenses over a five-year period (15 years for R&D performed abroad).
Fact of the Week: US R&D Is Estimated To Have Increased to $792 Billion in 2021
Source: Gary Anderson, John Jankowski, and Mark Boroush, " U.S. R&D Increased by $51 Billion in 2020 to $717 Billion; Estimate for 2021 Indicates Further Increase to $792 Billion," National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, January 4, 2023. Commentary: The U.S. National Science Foundation estimates that U.S. research and development (R&D) increased to $792 billion in 2021, a 10.4 percent nominal increase from 2020 ($717 billion).
The Cost of Data Localization Policies in Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Vietnam
Acknowledgments This report was made possible in part by generous support from Meta. The authors also wish to thank Rob Atkinson and Stephen Ezell and the government officials, journalists, private sector representatives, trade associations, and others who helped build the list of data localization measures and to better understand the changing nature and impact of data localization in these countries and territories. Any errors or omissions are the authors’ responsibility alone.
Why Congress Should Restore Full Expensing for Investments in Equipment and Research and Development
KEY TAKEAWAYS Investments in R&D and equipment drive innovation, growth, and competitiveness. But most of the benefits of these investments accrue to society, not to individual firms, so tax incentives encouraging firms’ expenditures are an important public good. Full expensing of investments in equipment—which allows firms to deduct the full real value of their expenditures—begins phasing out in 2023, and R&D expenses must be amortized over a five-year period starting in 2022.
Fact of the Week: More Than One-Third of All Apps Left the Google Play Store Because of GDPR
(Ed. Note: The “Innovation Fact of the Week” appears as a regular feature in each edition of ITIF’s weekly email newsletter. Sign up today.) Rebecca Janßen, et al. “GDPR and the Lost Generation of Innovative Apps,” , Working Paper 30028(May 2022). The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) imposes additional operations costs on app developers and lowers apps’ revenues by diminishing their monetization opportunities.
A new way for deep tech brands to measure their PR impact
While AVE ruled for many years, particularly among those that were predominantly targeting the trade media, it was not a measurement that worked particularly well for those practitioners who worked within the consumer and mainstream media environment. Thus, in Barcelona, Spain in 2010 PR people from 33 countries attended a summit convened by the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) to address the problem and produce an ‘industry standard’ solution.
Marketing and PR campaigns to celebrate corporate anniversaries
Are you an industrial, IT or electronics company that has a milestone anniversary coming up? It doesn’t matter if you’re about to celebrate your 5th or 50th year in business: every anniversary has the potential to be a platform for marketing and PR campaigns.
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