Digital Economy Working Group

Overview
The Digital Economy Working Group is an interagency group led by the National Economic Council and consisting of representatives from the Department of Commerce, the Department of Treasury, the Department of Labor, the National Science Foundation, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Council of Economic Advisers to coordinate economic analysis of the new digital economy within the government. The working group will consult with experts in industry, academia, research firms, associations, and non-profit organizations to stimulate research and encourage the development of better data and analysis to track how information technology and electronic commerce are affecting particular industries and the economy as a whole. The interagency group will emphasize analysis to better determine:


 * the shape and size of the evolving digital economy, both overall and at aggregated industry levels;
 * the processes through which firms develop and apply the new technologies;
 * the processes through which the new technologies are transforming markets;
 * the social and economic factors influencing the economic returns to electronic commerce, such as the effects of investment in IT capital on productivity;
 * demographic characteristics of user populations;
 * the implications of electronic commerce for international trade and competitiveness; and
 * the influence of electronic commerce on labor markets and the workplace and how these may differ at the sectoral and firm level.

To this end, the interagency group will sponsor a conference that engages a broad range of experts from the public and private sectors. The conference will review new research on the impact of investments in information technology and the influence of electronic commerce on the economy and assess the need for additional data and analytic tools. The results of the conference will help develop recommendations on new indicators for the information economy, new types of data collection, and new research that could be undertaken by organizations in the public and private sectors.