Digitisation and Technological Change

Recent advances in digital technologies are affecting the costs and therefore patterns of international trade and production. New digital technologies have, for example, allowed businesses to reach customers in other countries and coordinate their international supply chains more easily.

These opportunities are increasingly being spread to small firms. New digital technologies have also changed the value and volume of data that businesses collect, store and investigate, often on us as individuals, and created new huge platform companies.

Understanding how trade policy should adjust to this moving technological target requires evidence on the impact these technological changes have brought about and how current policy and regulations, for example, those on personal data or intellectual property, have shaped business decisions, in particular around international trade and production. The digital and technological change theme will investigate both of those issues, providing new evidence for the UK and other countries.

To understand the new directions for trade policy this new evidence implies, a final strand of the research will bring together a multidisciplinary team of experts from across CITP. The research findings from this strand will make important contributions toward reconciling personal data protection, the coordination of governance regulations across countries and digital trade provisions in trade agreements.