Innovation Files: Where Tech Meets Public Policy

From bottle manufacturing to machine repair, automation has made just about every industry more efficient and adaptive to consumer demands. But despite its omnipresence, policymakers have failed to f…

Antitrust policy provides a perfect lens to see the systematic differences between China and Western liberal democracies, according to Dr. Angela Zhang, director of the Center for Chinese Law at the …

Facial recognition technology has faced widespread allegations of discrimination in recent years, leading some cities to restrict its use—but exactly how valid are these claims? Rob and Jackie sit do…

Long before Walmart and Amazon, there was A&P—The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company—which started as a mail-order tea business in the Civil War era before displacing Sears, Roebuck & Co. in the 19…

IBM shaped the way the world did business for decades, driving the government’s technological innovation, competing to build the first PCs, and adapting to service economy. Few people know IBM’s fasc…

When it comes to the innovation economy, there is no hotter issue these days than antitrust. Technology companies, in particular, are on the firing line as an increasingly vocal populist movement see…

Throughout modern history, public financing has made possible some of the most important and impactful innovations society has enjoyed—from refrigeration to the Internet—and the spillover benefits ha…

When it comes to national innovation ecosystems, Norway has been a standout performer. After discovering oil, it vaulted from being one of Europe’s poorest countries in the 1950s to become a high-wag…

There is a deep disconnect between the U.S. education system and the workplace. How can policymakers bridge the gap and create clear pathways to good jobs? How do technical schools, community college…

The “techlash” is a story of extreme pendulum swings—from an era in which splashy product launches earned gushing media reviews to a relentless crisis narrative in which the tech industry is viewed w…

There is an inordinate amount of hype and fear around artificial intelligence these days, as a chorus of scholars, luminaries, media, and politicians nervously project that it could soon take our job…

In the final weeks of the Trump administration, Rob and Jackie sat down with Dan Wang, a technology analyst and China expert at Gavekal Dragonomics Research, to discuss the successes and failures of …

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is at the center of a contentious, high-stakes debate about free speech, intermediary liability, and the future of the Internet. Why is a 1996 law so imp…

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science devoted to creating computer systems that perform tasks characteristic of human intelligence, such as learning and decision-making. AI ove…

Venture capital firms have reined in their funding for resource-intensive start-ups trying to commercialize new technologies in fields such as clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and robotics. Toda…

Crops and foods improved through biotechnology, popularly known as “GMOs” (for “genetically modified organisms”) remain at the center of a maelstrom of conflicting claims and assertions. It is diffic…

The United States has no national, coordinated innovation policy system. In fact, its overall innovation system has been deteriorating. The country’s economic future and national security will depend…

Despite the growing use of computers and software in every facet of our economy, not until recently has computer science education begun to gain traction in American school systems. The current focus…

It has become abundantly clear that the United States faces a robust economic and military competitor in China. In at least one respect, this is a more daunting challenge than America faced in the Co…

There was a time, a decade or so ago, when many people thought it would be a long while before telecommunications networks could handle the migration from cable TV to over-the-top video streaming. Cl…