High-Tech Nation: How Technological Innovation Shapes America’s 435 Congressional Districts

The purpose of this report is to shed light on just how widely diffused the country’s innovation-driven, high-tech economy really is, so members of Congress and other policymakers can find common cause in advancing an agenda that builds up the shared foundations of national strength in a globally integrated marketplace. The report draws on 20 indicators of the innovation economy to paint statistical portraits of all 435 US congressional districts, 50 states, plus the District of Columbia. Putting innovation, productivity, and competitiveness in the center of the national economic agenda requires that policymakers look beyond the confines of traditional partisan ideology—including the left’s “demand-side” focus on getting money into middle-class pockets and the right’s “supply-side” focus on increasing the supply of capital—and instead embrace a strategy that is grounded in several essentials:

• A highly educated and skilled workforce;
• Robust public investment in research and development;
• World-class digital-age infrastructure;
• “Smart government” policies, including how agencies procure and implement technology in their own operations, and how government spurs adoption of emerging information technologies more broadly (e.g., Internet of Things, smart cities, etc.);
• Tax and regulatory policies that encourage firms to invest in technology; and
• Strong connections to the global marketplace, but through a rules-based, carefully enforced trading system.