Nonrival

Expert analysis from think tanks and academia, on public policy, economics, and technology.
Human experts. AI summaries.

China's Tech Rise Is Real, Homegrown, and Not Driven by Stealing American Know-How

nber

• A new study of nearly 14 million Chinese patents finds that China's innovation in critical technologies is genuine — patent quality has kept pace with the U.S., not declined as skeptics often assume.
• Surprisingly, the gains aren't coming from tech giants like Huawei or state-owned enterprises — universities are the dominant force in Chinese critical-technology innovation.
• Fewer than one in ten Chinese critical-tech patents involves an inventor with U.S. experience or training, undermining the common narrative that China's progress depends heavily on American-trained talent or intellectual property theft.

People Are Quietly Rewriting Their LinkedIn Histories — and It Reveals a Lot About AI's Rise

nber

• Nearly 20% of LinkedIn users retroactively edit past job titles or descriptions after leaving those jobs, undermining economists' use of profile data as reliable historical records.
• These edits track job transitions and cultural shifts: post-2022 saw a surge in AI-related language, while references to remote work and DEI have recently declined.
• LLM-style writing markers spiked sharply after ChatGPT's launch, especially among less-educated users and MBAs from lower-ranked programs, suggesting AI is helping people polish their professional self-presentation.

The US-Iran War Has Done Something No Crisis Ever Has: Actually Closed the Strait of Hormuz

atlantic_council

• Since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran in February 2026, Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz — the first time in history the waterway has been fully closed — disrupting nearly 40% of global oil supply and trapping thousands of seafarers.
• The closure has sent oil prices above $100 a barrel and triggered energy blackouts, food shortages, and fertilizer crises in some of the world's poorest countries, which depend heavily on Gulf exports.
• Even if a lasting ceasefire restores free passage, Iran's successful use of Hormuz as a geopolitical weapon — and the US failure to reopen it — has badly damaged the international maritime order that has governed global shipping since 1982.

In the News

U.S. Tariffs Are Forcing Dozens of Countries to Ban Forced-Labor Imports — But the Rushed Approach Could Backfire

csis

• The Trump administration has imposed tariffs on 60 countries for failing to ban imports made with forced labor, triggering a global wave of new legislation — over a dozen countries have already passed or drafted such prohibitions in response.
• Forced labor import bans, when well-designed and enforced, have shown real results: $85 million recovered in withheld wages, supply chain shifts away from Xinjiang, and meaningful labor reforms at specific companies.
• But critics — including workers' rights groups — warn that blanket tariffs imposed without democratic consultation could cause layoffs, enable 'cut and run' corporate behavior, and undermine the very worker protections they're meant to advance.

Analysis

A New AI Tool Scans 120 Years of Newspaper Archives to Measure Institutional Uncertainty — and It's Flashing Red for the US and UK

nber

• Researchers trained a large language model on 12 million Times of London articles spanning 1800–2019 to detect "critical junctures" — moments of genuine institutional uncertainty — in real time rather than only in hindsight.
• Unlike standard geopolitical or economic risk indices, their measure captures uncertainty even when institutions ultimately don't change, and it picked up signals of major crises like World War I earlier than existing tools.
• Their index currently shows institutional uncertainty in the US and UK at levels comparable to the early 1940s — a warning signal that other leading risk measures are missing.

Also Worth a Look

• In the global AI race, whoever builds the data centers and power grids wins — not whoever has the best models (atlantic_council)
• China's Oil Imports Fell 32% After Strait of Hormuz Disruptions — and That Actually Helped Cushion Global Prices (eia)
• AI's Insatiable Appetite for Memory Chips Is About to Make Your Next Laptop a Lot More Expensive (csis)
• Tying Drug Subsidies to a Positive Test Result Cuts Unnecessary Treatment and Saves Money (nber)
• A Randomized Trial Found That Algorithmic Risk Scores Help Child Protective Services Target the Right Cases Without Widening Racial Disparities (nber)
• The 100-Year-Old Catholic Idea That Could Guide Who Controls AI (the_conversation)
• Anti-China Sentiment in America Was Already Widespread Before Trump — Presidents Just Caught Up to Everyone Else (nber)