The ‘New Economy’ and Information Technology Policy

Pamela Samuelson, University of California, Berkeley, and Hal R. Varian, University of California, Berkeley

1/01/2005
(Original Publish Date: 7/18/2001)

The growth of the information technology sector (IT) in the 1980s was an important development for the economy, but it spurred relatively little policy or media interest. True, IT was recognized as a driver of comparative advantage for the US and there were a few initiatives involving industrial policy and military preparedness, IT was of interest primarily to specialists. In the 1990’s, however, things changed dramatically when the Internet became a topic of intense public discussion. Suddenly computers were not only a way to manipulate information, but also a way to communicate information. This led to a dramatic rise in the public and political awareness of the importance of information policy issues such as intellectual property, privacy, and security.