The New Goliaths: How Corporations Use Software to Dominate Industries, Kill Innovation, and Undermine Regulation
James Bessen, TPRI Executive Director’s, new book featured in Politics Today, March 6, 2023.
Tag: Information Technology
How big technology systems are slowing innovation
James Bessen’s article “How big technology systems are slowing innovation: The great IT revolution is no longer promoting economic dynamism. It’s preventing it” in the MIT Technology Review February 17, 2022
Declining Industrial Disruption
James Bessen, Erich Denk, Joowon Kim, Cesare Righi
This paper reports the first recent estimates of trends in the displacement of industry-leading firms. Displacement hazards rose for several decades since 1970 but have declined sharply since 2000. Using a production function-based model to explore the role of investments, acquisitions, and lobbying, we find that investments by dominant firms in intangibles, especially software, are distinctly associated with greater persistence and reduced leapfrogging.
Firm Differences: Skill Sorting and Software
James Bessen, Erich Denk, and Chen Meng
New research explaining the role of proprietary software investment in the rise in skill sorting and wage inequality.
Unlocking Frontier Technology: The Policy Challenge of the Digital Economy
James Bessen writing for The Innovation Frontier Project at the Progressive Policy Institute on policy implications of large-scale IT investment leading to declining competition and increasing inequality.
Advanced Technologies Adoption and Use by U.S. Firms: Evidence from the Annual Business Survey
Kristina McElheran et al.
A new survey module intended to complement and expand research on the causes and consequences of advanced technology adoption by analyzing the 2018 Annual Business Survey.
Twisting the Demand Curve: Digitalization and the Older Workforce
Kristina McElheran et al.
New research exploring the age-related effects of firms’ software investments on employee wages.
Why Industries Don’t Get Disrupted like They Used to
James Bessen quoted in Quartz about declining industrial dynamism.
Should We Break Up Big Tech?
Timothy Simcoe quoted in BU Today, on keeping tech firms from getting too big.
If the Economy Booms, Thank Software
James Bessen cited in the Wall Street Journal on the effects of investment in proprietary IT and software.