The New York Times today published my response to an oped by Senators Lindsey Graham & Elizabeth Warren calling for a new “Digital Consumer Protection Commission” to micromanage the high-tech...
I have a new R Street Institute policy study out this week doing a deep dive into the question: “Can We Predict the Jobs and Skills Needed for the AI Era?” There’s lots of hand-wringing goi...
https://techliberation.com/2023/03/11/why-isnt-everyone-already-unemployed-due-to-automation/
President Biden began his 2023 State of the Union remarks by saying America is defined by possibilities. Correct! Unfortunately, his tech-bashing will undermine those possibilities by discouragin...
It was my pleasure this week to participate in a panel discussion about the future of innovation policy at the James Madison Institute’s 2022 Tech and Innovation Summit in Coral Gables, FL. Our...
Over the past decade, tech policy experts have debated the impact of “software eating the world.” In coming years, the debate will turn to what happens when that software can be described as...
As I note in my latest regular column for The Hill, it seems like everyone these days is talking about the importance of America “building again.” For example, take a look at this compendium...
https://techliberation.com/2022/04/29/building-again-must-be-more-than-just-rhetoric/
Here’s a slide presentation on “The Future of Innovation Policy” that I presented to some student groups recently. It builds on themes discussed in my recent books, Permissionless Innovatio...
https://techliberation.com/2022/04/18/slide-presentation-on-the-future-of-innovation-policy/
Are you a student or young scholar looking for opportunities to advance your studies and future career opportunities? The Mercatus Center at George Mason University can help. I’ve been with Mer...
https://techliberation.com/2022/02/14/opportunities-for-students-at-the-mercatus-center/
On Tuesday, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, posted the text of the “America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology and Economic Strengt...
This is a compendium of readings on “progress studies,” or essays and books which generally make the case for technological innovation, dynamism, economic growth, and abundance. I will update...
https://techliberation.com/2022/01/25/the-case-for-innovation-progress-abundance-some-readings/
The Mercatus Center has just released a new special study that I co-authored with Connor Haaland entitled, “Does the United States Need a More Targeted Industrial Policy for High Tech?” With ...
https://techliberation.com/2021/11/17/new-mercatus-center-report-on-industrial-policy/
Discourse magazine recently published my essay on what “Industrial Policy Advocates Should Learn from Don Lavoie.” With industrial policy enjoying a major revival in the the U.S. — with se...
https://techliberation.com/2021/11/09/lavoies-lessons-for-industrial-policy-planners/
Wishful thinking is a dangerous drug. Some pundits and policymakers believe that, if your intentions are pure and you have the “right” people in power, all government needs to do is sprinkle ...
https://techliberation.com/2021/09/12/can-government-reproduce-silicon-valley-everywhere/
In my latest column for The Hill, I consider that dangers of government gambling our tax dollars on risky industrial policy programs. I begin by noting: Roll the dice at a casino enough times, a...
https://techliberation.com/2021/07/16/keeping-uncle-sam-out-of-the-industrial-policy-casino/
Discourse magazine has just published my latest essay, “‘Japan Inc.’ and Other Tales of Industrial Policy Apocalypse.” It is a short history of the hysteria surrounding the growth of Jap...
I was my pleasure to appear on the latest episode of the Dissed podcast to discuss economic liberty and the right to earn a living. The show was hosted by Anastasia Boden and Elizabeth Slattery ...
https://techliberation.com/2021/06/03/podcast-on-economic-liberty-the-right-to-earn-a-living/
Over at Discourse magazine, my Mercatus Center colleague Matt Mitchell and I have a new essay on, “Industrial Policy is a Very Old, New Idea.” We argue that, despite having a long history o...
Here’s a new animated explainer video that I narrated for the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project. The 3-minute video discusses how earlier “tech giants” rose and fell as...
https://techliberation.com/2021/03/17/video-lessons-from-the-hall-of-fallen-giants/
Industrial Policy is a red-hot topic once again with many policymakers and pundits of different ideological leanings lining up to support ambitious new state planning for various sectors — esp...
https://techliberation.com/2021/03/15/skeptical-takes-on-expansive-industrial-policy-efforts/
In our latest feature for Discourse magazine, Connor Haaland and I explore the question, “Should the U.S. Copy China’s Industrial Policy?” We begin by noting that: Calls for revitalizing...
https://techliberation.com/2021/03/15/should-the-us-follow-chinas-lead-on-industrial-policy/
In his debut essay for the new Agglomerations blog, my former colleague Caleb Watney, now Director of Innovation Policy for the Progressive Policy Institute, seeks to better define a few importan...
https://techliberation.com/2020/09/03/on-defining-industrial-policy/
Interoperability is a topic that has long been of interest to me. How networks, platforms, and devices work with each other–or sometimes fail to–is an important engineering, business, and pol...
https://techliberation.com/2020/08/29/on-doctorows-adversarial-interoperability/
Why can’t governments ever clean up their messes? Occasional spring cleanings are essential not only for keeping our own homes tidy and in good working order, but also for keeping our governmen...
Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems have grown more prominent in both their use and their unintended effects. Just last month, LAPD announced that they would end their use of a predicting polic...
In a much-circulated new essay (“It’s Time to Build”), Marc Andreessen has penned a powerful paean to the importance of building. He says the COVID crisis has awakened us to the reality th...
Which seems like a more pressing concern at the moment: Ensuring that we get hand sanitizer onto shelves or making sure that children don’t drink it once we do? Getting face masks out to the p...
https://techliberation.com/2020/04/21/hand-sanitizers-face-masks-and-common-sense-regulation/
The Mercatus Center at George Mason University has just released a new paper by Patrick A. McLaughlin, Matthew D. Mitchell, and me entitled, “A Fresh Start: How to Address Regulations Suspended...
In a new essay in The Dallas Morning News (“Licensing restrictions for health care workers need to be flexible to fight coronavirus“), Trace Mitchell and I discuss recent efforts to reform ...
https://techliberation.com/2020/03/23/reforming-licensing-rules-to-help-fight-the-pandemic/
The latest reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Act, which governs Career and Technical educational programs, requires local job market alignment. This is an impossible and imprudent task.
by Walter Stover and Anne Hobson Franklin Foer’s article in the Atlantic on Jeff Bezos’s master plan offers insight into the mind of the famed CEO, but his argument that Amazon is all-powerfu...
https://techliberation.com/2019/11/11/amazon-and-the-diffuse-power-of-consumers/