Technology & Innovation

The new $100,000 H-1B fee tacitly acknowledges what early policy architects signaled: expanding temporary tech visas can depress domestic wages. By bringing the fully loaded cost of a new H1B hire closer to what the local market would require to recruit and retain comparable talent, it narrows the wedge between visa-enabled staffing and hiring Americans at market rates.

The GENIUS Act is a disastrous law that poses grave and unacceptable threats to our financial and economic future. Congress must remove those threats by (1) repealing the GENIUS Act and passing legislation that requires all stablecoin providers to be FDIC-insured banks, and (2) adopting legislation that requires all crypto derivatives to comply with the rules governing non-digital derivatives under Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act.

This paper argues that (i) we have reached “peak GenAI” in terms of current Large Language Models (LLMs); scaling (building more data centers and using more chips) will not take us further to the goal of “Artificial General Intelligence” (AGI); returns are diminishing rapidly; (ii) the AI-LLM industry and the larger U.S. economy are experiencing a speculative bubble, which is about to burst.

This paper argues that (i) we have reached “peak GenAI” in terms of current Large Language Models (LLMs); scaling (building more data centers and using more chips) will not take us further to the goal of “Artificial General Intelligence” (AGI); returns are diminishing rapidly; (ii) the AI-LLM industry and the larger U.S. economy are experiencing a speculative bubble, which is about to burst.

Two economists who have studied Intel warn that Trump’s move to take a stake in the company amounts to flashy optics, incoherent strategy, and a creeping politicization of economic policy.

The famed short-seller reminds us that technology might advance, but we’re still a pretty predictable bunch of apes.

Without strong privacy laws and aligned incentives, increased AI competition worsens surveillance, manipulation, and disinformation—threatening privacy, autonomy, and democracy.

We typically view competition as a positive force that lowers prices, improves quality and service, and increases variety. However, competition can sometimes be toxic.

Dr. David Mussington, cybersecurity expert with two decades of experience, reveals why the clock is ticking on U.S. vulnerabilities under Trump.

Has the Inflation Reduction Act hindered pharmaceutical innovation? Evidence shows that the pharma industry can strategically manage disruptive change.

How to guide innovative AI efforts to increase labor demand and create better-paying jobs?

We need a dual approach to AI: steer technology in the short term while building new systems for the long term.

Misaligned incentives account for many of the most troubling features of the pharmaceutical industry’s present practices and performance.

DeepSeek’s appearance is changing the AI landscape in more ways than we might think.

Fred Block, Research Professor of Sociology at UC Davis, joins Rob Johnson to discuss his latest book, The Habitation Society, which explores the need to move beyond industrial-era economic models to create an economy that prioritizes community well-being. Block critiques how economic policies have fueled inequality and stagnation while offering solutions—such as restructuring public finance—to foster prosperity for all.

This conference aims to explore important issues of economics of AI, good governance, humanization of AI technologies, privacy, considerations of creative thinking and imagination, and take a comprehensive look at the challenges and opportunities of AI technologies.

In his new book, Mindless, acclaimed economic historian Robert Skidelsky urges readers to pause and reflect on the delicate balance between advancing technology and our human essence.

As artificial intelligence reshapes our economy, policymakers must act swiftly to prevent a winner-take-all scenario in the rapidly evolving market for AI foundation models.

The decisions we make now about the governance of AI will have profound implications for the future of our economy and society.

The financialization of U.S. firms making critical products endangers both American global leadership and, in Tesla’s case, climate change progress.

From the perspective of innovative enterprise, we ask how Musk might abuse his power of strategic control—and what that would mean for corporate governance reform.

As the “Technoking” of Tesla strategizes to maintain his control over the company’s decision-making, anyone concerned with the role that Tesla will play in the evolving EV transition should be asking how CEO Musk might use, or abuse, his powerful position.

The IRA has the potential to rectify the imbalance between public benefit and private incentives

Patrick Gelsinger stepped down as INTEL’s CEO on December 1. We published an analysis last August that provides context for why this is significant for the company and the US economy.

Cybersecurity expert Muayyad Al-Chalabi assesses CrowdStrike’s update failure and its broader implications for cybersecurity in a discussion with Lynn Parramore.

Increasing evidence that the IRA is probably not harming pharmaceutical innovation.

Sensitivity of investment and valuation to drug price indices and market conditions

New technologies appear to yield long-lasting benefits for the pioneer locations where they were originally developed.

The concentration of innovation in a handful of urban centers engenders large and persistent regional disparities in economic opportunity.

The $48 Billion Stock-Option Package and its Implications for the EV Transition

An ensemble of mechanisms enables cloud hegemons (Microsoft, Google, Amazon) to plan the whole AI knowledge and innovation network by weaponizing interdependence in networks.

Industry lobbyists vehemently oppose Medicare drug price negotiations. However, physician-scientist Fred Ledley and economist William Lazonick debunk their arguments.

India: Climate Change, Technology, and Growth

Reindustrialization vs Financialization

In his new book, Let Them Eat Crypto, Peter Howson cautions that the technologies are not just fraudulent but causing indefensible harm to both humanity and the planet.

The famed short-seller talks Sam Bankman-Fried, why Wall Street is still so keen on crypto, and how technology is making us dumber.

Recent developments in AI have added fuel to debates that have long simmered amongst economists, which could lead to a rethinking of economics itself.

The tech giant is in the hot seat, but it’s going to be a “big fight,” warns antitrust expert Mark Glick.

New technologies are not the problem. It’s a system distorted by a flawed ideology.

Losing jobs isn’t the only thing workers have to worry about. AI may make many jobs worse.

What happens when we fuse, for the first time, artificially intelligent agents into either our market or political structures?

The contrasting ideologies at play in this tech sector mirror the conflicting ideologies in economics

Cisco’s turn from innovation to financialization and what it means for the competitive position of the US information-and-communication-technology industry

On the dereliction of key US-based business corporations to take the lead in making the investments in organizational learning required to generate cutting-edge communication-infrastructure products.

Evidence sharply contradicts PhRMA’s contention that its member companies need unregulated drug prices to generate profits that they then reinvest in drug innovation.

Economist Cristina Caffarra, a leader in competition and antitrust, warns that ever-expanding tech giants raise concerns about the extent of their power.

How do we regulate an information utility?

Author and law professor Maurice Stucke explains why the practices of Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple are so dangerous and what’s really required to rein them in. Hint: Current proposals are unlikely to work.

A comment on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed rule “Share Repurchase Disclosure Modernization”

Business firms are not alone in making investments in the productive capabilities required to generate innovative goods and services. Household units and government agencies also make investments in productive capabilities upon which business firms rely for their own investment activities.

EEO-1 employment data document the vast over-representation of Asian Americans and vast under-representation of African Americans at tech companies in recent years. How did this happen?

In 2021, the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) celebrates 20 years of contributing research and expert analysis to global policy making.

Occasionally, financial speculation fastens onto transformational technologies that have the potential to create a genuinely new economy.

The governance of technology is a new challenge. The Recovery Plans is encouraging the digital transformation of our economies. An acceleration of technological change is bound to deeply affect labor markets and income distribution. While labor-market adaptation is likely to stave off permanent high unemployment, it cannot be counted on to prevent a sharp rise in inequality.

Our world is full of fault lines—growing inequality in income and opportunity; systemic racism; health and economic crises from a global pandemic; mistrust of experts; the existential threat of climate change; deep threats to employment in a digital economy with robotics on the rise. These fundamental problems and others like them stem from a common crisis in values.

Watch INET at the Trento Economics Festival online

Ransomware gangs have been causing extensive damage. It’s time that the government takes them more seriously.

As new coronavirus cases surge across India, calls are growing louder for wealthy countries to loosen intellectual property restrictions

Contrary to its image as a cash-strapped, transparent public service, Wikipedia is a wealthy NGO with close ties to big tech companies that it tries to obscure

Legal scholar Dina Srinivasan talks to INET’s Lynn Parramore about restoring fairness to a regulatory Wild West.

Labor-saving advances in AI may undo the gains from globalization and pose new challenges for economic development

Labor-saving advances in AI may undo the gains from globalization and pose new challenges for economic development

Given the mounting need to create good jobs, effect structural change, and transform the economy, what should policy priorities be in the digital era? Is there a role for industrial policy? What new policy options do we need to achieve inclusive prosperity?

Traditional welfare systems have emphasized the need for redistribution post-production. Are these policies sufficient in the future?

After years of amassing power, the tide is turning against the tech monopolies

A look inside the byzantine world of online ads

The central challenge confronting us in the future of work is this: can we create a future where work exists for all who need one with fair rewards, or will we end up on the path of increasing displacement, leaving workers vulnerable, dispensable, and miserable?

Some nations have embraced new technologies, while others seem ill-prepared. What accounts for this difference?

What are the 100 most pertinent economic questions facing our global societ?

In the future, how will work be different, what jobs are most at risk, what jobs are likely to grow?

A summary of INET’s latest Future of Work episode

Are there aspects of modern technology, made possible by unprecedented computing power and connectivity, that make them distinctively different from previous eras? If so, what are the implications?

Technology has coevolved with human societies and played critical roles in past social and economic transformations. From the invention of steam engines to the use of electricity, technological changes were responsible for boosting productivity gains and increasing standards of living. But what really is technology? Is it an external force outside our control, or do we have a say in its direction, development, and deployment? These questions were undoubtedly made more urgent with the rapid advancement in digital technologies of late.

Human societies have always coevolved with technology, but how can we think of technology? Is it an external force outside our control, or do we have a say in its direction, development and deployment?

Advancements in automation and artificial intelligence are quickly reaching tipping points, yet our policies, institutions and mindsets are woefully outdated. What will work look like in the future, and how do we secure a future that works for all?

The rise of the Knowledge Based Economy and subsequent Data Driven Economy has created a new world in which the basis of wealth and power is derived from control of these intangible assets, alongside creating a new kind of social and political space in which both our public and private spheres are technologically reshaped. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated these transformations that permeate our world and has amplified their effects.

Margaret Heffernan’s new book “Uncharted” warns against giving up the power to shape our destiny to gurus and gadgets promising false certainty.

Technology has played a critical role during the COVID-19 pandemic, facilitating remote work and automating certain pandemic responses. But it has also accelerated technological adoption, and the “future of work” may now be the present.

Do the benefits of new technologies accrue primarily to inventors, early investors, and highly skilled users, or to society more widely as their adoption generates employment growth?

Rising inequality has focused attention on the benefits of new technologies. Do these accrue primarily to inventors, early investors, and highly skilled users, or to society more widely as their adoption generates employment growth?

Abstract, “basic science” research is essential to drug discovery. It is also largely funded by the public sector.

Technology has played a central role in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But that has come with increased risks to privacy. How do we balance our needs for safety, convenience and privacy in the wake of this crisis?

As the COVID crisis threatens to overwhelm both federal and state government services, getting the digital component of government services to function effectively is mission critical.

IMPORTANT: Due to growing concerns around the coronavirus, the INET Conference, as well as these workshops will be postponed. Applicants will soon be provided further information.

Dr. Chen Long, Director of the Luohan Academy, explains why the digital revolution is so different from the industrial revolution

What will empower a worker to be able to make greater demands on a profitable economy or employer? The answer may be summed up in one word: leverage.

In her new book, Don’t Be Evil, Rana Foroohar explores how to confront companies like Google and their under-regulated stampede over all of us.

To make start-ups work for everyone, we need to put power back in the hands of workers.

Big Tech companies are swallowing up nascent competitors. Why aren’t regulators paying attention?

How antitrust law is ill-equipped to address tech mergers

INET’s grantees and Commission on Global Economic Transformation are looking at artificial intelligence and society.

Artificial intelligence promises to make our lives easier. But is the cost losing some of our humanity?

Artificial intelligence doesn’t have to be a job killer—if we use it right

“Facebook is undermining our country, our democracy.”

A report of the Commission on Global Economic Transformation’s subcommittee on Inequality, Technology, and the Future of Work

Facebook engaged in an elaborate bait and switch on user data: Privacy disappeared when competition did. Laws governing competition could change that.

“Founding father” of virtual reality explores the ways digital platforms change economic relationships Computer scientist Jaron Lanier explains the uneasy relationship between an analog world and a corporate digital infrastructure.

As automation takes on more routine tasks, work will become more about creativity, ethics, and empathy

Richard Vague looks at what it’ll take for the U.S. to win the R&D race

As technology and deregulation continue to shape the labor market, maintaining strong worker protections is as important as ever