Information Technology & Innovation Foundation

In the last few years, a number of pundits, advocates, and journalists have argued that market concentration has grown in the United States and that this has caused a precipitous decline in the number of business start-ups. In this narrative, “monopoly” is a sclerotic scourge, robbing the economy of its traditional dynamism and leading to a host of problems, including less innovation and slower job growth. But there is no statistical relationship between start-up creation and change in concentration by industry; high-growth start-up activity is healthy.

The rapid growth of large platforms has caused some activists, scholars, and political officials to worry about their impact on competition. Concern seems to be aimed at two issues. First, certain companies, such as Amazon, sell directly to customers but also run a platform that connects third-party suppliers to customers. Some people are concerned that platforms could compete unfairly by using data about sales by third-party sellers to decide whether to develop and sell competing products. Second, because of network effects, many platform markets have one or two dominant players.

The historic COVID-19 pandemic offers a unique opportunity for policymakers to examine the successes and failures of the nation’s broadband system. The stay-at-home orders, business closures, and social distancing necessary to fight coronavirus transmission generated a considerable increase in broadband traffic and a dramatic shift in usage patterns. The jump in demand has seen peak traffic roughly 20 to 30 percent higher than before the pandemic. Thankfully, the increase in broadband traffic was within the anticipated growth in demand operators could already accommodate. As such, U.S.

Every year, the advocacy group Freedom House releases a survey and analysis of Internet and digital media freedom around the world.

5G will make wireless connectivity more flexible and better able to be tightly integrated into different functions throughout the economy. Accelerating a secure deployment will be a force multiplier for growth. The private sector will lead the 5G rollout, but governments need to help. Agencies should leverage 5G for their own processes and encourage its use in their related industries. State and local governments should eliminate barriers to deployment.