The Economics of Digitization: An Agenda for NSF

Abstract

This agenda evaluates the consequences of digitization, as well as the impact of alternative policies governing the creation and use of digital information. This agenda focuses especially on the development of a research community to investigate the economics of digitization, to analyze the governance of intellectual property in this sector, particularly through copyright, and to pioneer approaches to measuring the economic activity related to digitization. We ask the NSF to establish a theoretically grounded empirical research tradition on the economic consequences of digitization, with emphasis on governance issues, such as those around the redesign of copyright; Encourage high-quality high-impact research that significantly reshapes academic and policy evaluation of the consequences of digitization, with an emphasis on issues grounded in measurement; Establish a research community with a recognizable identity and regularized interactions in order to establish consistent research norms, and facilitate cumulative research across this community, and enhance its impact on related fields and policy; Establish a data infrastructure for cumulative, transparent, and high-quality research and the ability to translate that research for policy evaluation.