ITIF - The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

12/06/2021 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 12/06/2021 11:18

Former FTC Economist Julie Carlson Joins ITIF’s Schumpeter Project on Competition Policy as Associate Director

WASHINGTON-The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the world's leading think tank for science and technology policy, welcomed former FTC senior economist Julie Carlson to its staff today as associate director of antitrust and innovation policy for ITIF's Schumpeter Project on Competition Policy. Carlson will help lead ITIF's research on antitrust-an issue increasingly occupying center stage in the world of technology and innovation policy.

"Julie Carlson brings a wealth of subject-matter expertise and first-hand experience with antitrust law and regulation," said Aurelien Portuese, director of ITIF's Schumpeter Project. "We are thrilled to have Julie on the team to help advance a new intellectual framework for practical antitrust reforms that enable the innovation economy by better accounting for the dynamic nature of competition."

At the FTC, Carlson provided economic analysis of alleged anticompetitive conduct, participated in agency advocacy, and contributed to various agency reports, including a major 2016 FTC report on patent assertion entity activity. She has analyzed merger reviews, contributed to the FTC's international technical assistance missions, and served as an adviser to former Commissioner William Kovacic and Chairman Joseph Simons.

Carlson has a doctorate in economics from Michigan State University and taught at Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, and Trinity University.

"The importance of innovation incentives is underappreciated in general, and especially so in the context of antitrust enforcement," said Carlson. "I am looking forward to working with ITIF to put innovation considerations in the center of the debate over the appropriate role for antitrust in the U.S. economy."

ITIF's Schumpeter Project takes its name from the economist Joseph Schumpeter, the most influential thinker on the role of innovation in the economy, who recognized nearly a century ago that "perennial gales of creative destruction" continually revolutionize capitalism from within, replacing the old with the new in a process that shapes competition by disrupting market power. ITIF established the Schumpeter Project to modernize antitrust policy by incorporating Schumpeter's insights.

In welcoming Carlson, ITIF President Robert D. Atkinson said: "With antitrust issues increasingly at the center of key economic policy debates, we are excited that Julie will be joining our Schumpeter Project to bring sorely needed objective economic analysis to what has become an ideologically driven debate."