Unbalanced Data Leads to Obsolete Economic Advice

The high technology industry is recognized as being a major driver of the current economy. I am concerned about how poorly its role is understood in governmental decision making. Computer scientists do express concerns about disturbing trends.⁹ An early study sponsored by ACM was based on opinions, rather than data.¹ Similar discussions address other high-technology engineering disciplines.² Analyses of relevant data should be the basis for decision making. Having "big data" raises high expectations.⁷ But there are two related lacunae:

• Most analysts ignore the mechanisms that drive high technology and the intellectual origin of contents in the products being marketed.
• The data needed to measure the business interactions involving intellectual products within and among high technology enterprises is unavailable to economists.

In this Viewpoint, I expand on these two factors, which lead to misleading advice and imbalanced decision making.