All Research

All Research

What Intellectual Property Policies Should We Expect from the Second Trump Administration?
Blog Post
AEIdeas

What Intellectual Property Policies Should We Expect from the Second Trump Administration?

“To expect the unexpected,” Oscar Wilde wrote in his 1895 play An Ideal Husband, “shows a thoroughly modern intellect.” If so, then when it comes to predicting developments in the second Trump…

Should State Laws Determine National Energy and Climate Policies?
Book
National Review

Should State Laws Determine National Energy and Climate Policies?

Opponents of fossil fuels claim to oppose pollution, but they are all too happy to pollute our legal and constitutional institutions in pursuit of their climate-policy agenda. The latest manifestation…

Unconstitutionally Underinclusive: When Laws Do Too Little
Blog Post
AEIdeas

Unconstitutionally Underinclusive: When Laws Do Too Little

Can a law violate the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech because it does too little or regulates too few actors to substantially mitigate the harms and advance the interests it’s designed to address? The…

Global Existential Risks
Article
The Honest Broker

Global Existential Risks

In 2022, on a bipartisan basis, the U.S. Congress passed the Global Catastrophic Risk Management Act of 2022 requiring the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate an expert assessment of global catastrophic…

An AI Chatbot and a Teen’s Death: Corporate Responsibility and Legal Liability?
Blog Post
AEIdeas

An AI Chatbot and a Teen’s Death: Corporate Responsibility and Legal Liability?

The suicide of 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III this February is tragic, but should the individuals and business entities behind the generative artificial intelligence product known as Character.AI that allegedly caused…

A Memo for Trump’s Energy Czar
Article
The Honest Broker

A Memo for Trump’s Energy Czar

Last week, the Financial Times reported that President-elect Donald Trump is considering appointing an “energy czar,” described as: The new energy tsar role and its powers are not yet finalised, but people familiar with…

The Case for Forward-Looking Policies
Article
The Dispatch

The Case for Forward-Looking Policies

This is the fourth presidential election cycle that I’ve worked as a tech policy analyst and it’s easily been my least busy. Normally, a presidential candidate would suggest a crazy…

Between Rules and Reality: The Complex Challenge of EU Data Compliance
Blog Post
AEIdeas

Between Rules and Reality: The Complex Challenge of EU Data Compliance

The European Union presents businesses with a complex challenge: They must comply with three major regulatory frameworks that sometimes have conflicting requirements. These frameworks are the General Data Protection Regulation…

Election 2024: Supporting Crypto Is Good Politics and Good Policy
Blog Post
AEIdeas

Election 2024: Supporting Crypto Is Good Politics and Good Policy

The game of reading political outcomes is more art than science, especially at the national level. Election results turn on hundreds or thousands of policy and campaign margins. There is…

How Science Must Change
Book
The Honest Broker

How Science Must Change

A minor brouhaha erupted on social media this week when the editor of Scientific American, Laura Helmuth, in a late-night fit of rage, posted profanity-filled and disparaging comments about those who…

Breaking Down a Big Week in the Net Neutrality Case
Blog Post

Breaking Down a Big Week in the Net Neutrality Case

While the eyes of much of the country were on Pennsylvania and Georgia last week, the tech community was focused on Cincinnati, where the US Court of Appeals for the…

Respecting All First Amendment Stakeholders: The Constitutional Key for Platform Regulation
Blog Post
AEIdeas

Respecting All First Amendment Stakeholders: The Constitutional Key for Platform Regulation

It’s an all-too-predictable, rinse-and-repeat pattern: (1) A state adopts a statute to protect minors from the social media’s supposedly deleterious effects; (2) the law is challenged on First Amendment grounds; (3) a…

History of Technology: Cheaper, Cleaner, Easier
Article
Knowledge Problem

History of Technology: Cheaper, Cleaner, Easier

Every fall since 2020 I have been teaching energy economics in Northwestern University’s Master of Science in Energy and Sustainability (MSES) program. I team teach with my friend Mark Witte, and my…

The Power of Pivots: How Smart Companies Change the Game (with Gary Shapiro)
Podcast

The Power of Pivots: How Smart Companies Change the Game (with Gary Shapiro)

What separates the companies that successfully pivot from those that become cautionary tales in business history? How do government regulations either foster or hinder innovation in today’s tech landscape? And…

Determinants of Industry Concentration and Dispersion
Working Paper
AEI Economic Policy Working Paper Series

Determinants of Industry Concentration and Dispersion

Abstract Given the political and public interest in rising industry concentration in developed economies, researchers have been working on uncovering underlying mechanisms and implications. Various causes of concentration have been…