A new study shows H-1B visas for foreign professionals actually promote U.S. high tech employment.

With increasing employment is the number one goal in Washington, policy makers should look to IT as a major source of long-term, high-paying jobs.

There is renewed interest in a job creation agenda. But many of the proposals put forth to date overlook the importance of exports and innovation.

Rob Atkinson describes how better data needs to be available on America's colleges and universities.

In a new ITIF report, How IT Can Enable 21st Century Schools Tim McDonald and Ted Kolderie of the Education|Evolving, discuss why the existing school reform movement has stalled and how information technology (including computers, software and communications) can enable the emergence of fundamentally new kinds of schools

A new ITIF report shows that the number of jobs filled by telecommuters could grow nearly four-fold to 19 million and deliver substantial economic, environmental and quality of life benefits for the United States over the next 12 years. Spurred by advances in IT, especially the spread of broadband, telecommuting is already the fastest growing mode of getting from home to work. Thanks to its potential to cut costs, increase productivity, and expand the universe of potential employees, telecommuting is also emerging as a standard business strategy for a larger number of organizations. The report calls for government to pursue policies to accelerate and maximize telecommuting, including spurring the deployment and adoption of broadband, which is an essential facilitator of telecommuting.

Both John McCain and Barack Obama’s campaigns increasingly recognize the central role that science, technology, and innovation play in economic growth and have developed specific policy positions on these issues. This ITIF policy brief compares and assess the candidates’ technology and innovation policies across a number of specific issues areas, including: taxes, R&D funding, broadband and telecommunications, e-government, digital transformation, education and workforce development, trade, patent and intellectual property, and energy and the environment.

New report by George Mason University Professor David Hart benchmarking flows of highly-skilled workers to the United States against similar flows to seven other high-income countries. The report compares how national immigration policies foster or constrict these flows, and lays out several broad policy recommendations that the United States should consider to ensure that we not only compete effectively for talent in the short-term, but also lead the world toward a global system for developing and using talent that is beneficial for everyone over the long-term.

There have been surprisingly few attempts to catalogue what is known about the economic impact of information and communications technology (IT). In a new report, ITIF does just that, examining the impact of IT in five key areas: 1) productivity; 2) employment; 3) more efficient markets; 4) higher quality goods and services; and 5) innovation and new products and services. Thereport finds that the integration of IT into virtually all aspects of the economy and society is creating a digitally-enabled economy that is responsible for generating the lion’s share of economic growth and prosperity, both here and abroad, including in developing nations. Importantly, the “IT engine” does not appear likely to run out of gas anytime soon and should power robust growth for at least the next decade, provided that policy makers take the right steps. Toward that end thereport lays out five key public policy principles for driving digital prosperity: 1) give the digital economy its due; 2) actively encourage digital innovation and transformation of economic sectors; 3) use the tax code to spur IT investment; 4) encourage universal digital literacy and adoption; and 5) do no harm.