What is the Data Catalyst Institute?
The Data Catalyst Institute (DCI) is a research organization focused on informing and improving global public policy and thoughtful discourse within our data-driven economy. DCI provides governments, academics, and industry partners with the latest market intelligence, expert working groups, regulatory analyses, and original research.
Maximum Impact: How Digital Ads Level the Playing Field for U.S. Small Businesses
This report shows that today’s digital advertising market offers America’s SMBs more ways than ever before to reach potential customers, sell products, drive revenue, grow, and successfully compete in the marketplace. Read More
March 15, 2023
Super Selling: Most Small Businesses Still Use Multiple Sales Methods in a Post-COVID World
May 1, 2023
Leadership at Risk: How International Students Can Help Save America’s Global Economic and National Security Leadership
April 13, 2023
Insights
Small Business Can Harness the Power of Artificial Intelligence To Compete With Larger Corporations
Today, it is impossible to see exactly where the new age of AI technology may lead. Still, it is important to note this technology’s potential for small business owners.
This E-Commerce Marketplace is Led By Women Entrepreneurs, For Women Entrepreneurs: Q&A with WMarketplace’s Co-Founder and CEO, Kate Isler
During Women’s History Month, we hosted a Q&A with Kate Isler, Co-Founder & CEO of WMarketplace, to learn more about WMarketplace and Isler’s work.
Goldman Sachs: 99% of Women-Owned Small Businesses Believe the Federal Government Could Do More to Support Them
Goldman Sachs urges Congress to reauthorize and modernize the Small Business Administration to bolster the resources available to small businesses.
Massachusetts Madness: Snapshot of a New Online Sports Wagering Market
Massachusetts goes live with online sports wagering just in time for March Madness 2023.
Corporate Backing Doesn’t Immunize Franchises to Small Business Challenges
Independently-owned franchises face many of the same challenges mom-and-pop shops do – managing finances, hiring & retaining talent, navigating inflation, and more.
Through Thick and Thin: How a “Digital Safety Net” Continues to Strengthen Small Business Resiliency
The “Digital Safety Net” strengthens resiliency that enables SMBs to survive and even thrive in the face of the challenges, including those still to come.
Trial Balloons: The Rise of “Defense Tech” Startups in the United States
What does the next generation of DefTech, including firms working on “dual use” technologies with applications in civilian and defense environments, look like?
Flex Economy: Research Shows Most Gig Work Supplements Other Income Sources
New research from the Mercatus Center shows that workers with app-based gig jobs make up <10% of the independent contractor workforce.
DCI News Releases
Sign up for DCI news and updates
May 2023
Breaking the Model: Analysis of the NYC Restaurant Delivery Economy, Including Government-Proposed Fee Caps and Wage Hikes
NYC recently imposed fee caps (price controls) on third-party restaurant delivery apps. This analysis finds that while price controls can solve short-term problems, they almost always reduce long-term value for stakeholders.
May 2023
Super Selling: Most Small Businesses Still Use Multiple Sales Methods in a Post-COVID World
The latest ‘Super Selling’ research on contemporary small business retailers shows they take advantage of many different options for selling and fulfilling customer orders.
April 2023
Leadership at Risk: How International Students Can Help Save America’s Global Economic and National Security Leadership
How can America fix its increasing STEM graduate shortage and thereby support its innovation economies and global leadership aspirations?
March 2023
Maximum Impact: How Digital Ads Level the Playing Field for U.S. Small Businesses
This report shows that today’s digital advertising market offers America’s SMBs more ways than ever before to reach potential customers, sell products, drive revenue, grow, and successfully compete in the marketplace.
March 2023
Digital Tools: The Key to Small Business Resilience in Today’s Economy
This report shows that digital tools are key to U.S. small business resiliency in the face of multiple challenges the past few years (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain issues, and inflation). Published by the Connected Commerce Council.
January 2023
Small Businesses Find Big Value in Digital Ads
Today’s digital advertising market offers SMBs more ways than ever before to reach potential customers, sell products, drive revenue, and succeed.
October 2022
Super Selling: Exploring the Diversification and Potential of Rural Small Business Retail Sales
This research report takes an in-depth look at how modern rural small businesses in the U.S. reach their customers and sell their products through a variety of online and offline sales methods.
September 2022
Fee Caps on Food Apps: Exploring NYC Law Setting Maximum Restaurant Delivery Fees
DCI convened a discussion group of economists and experts (predominantly from NYC) and posed questions to investigate if the NYC fee cap ordinance would help restaurants as intended, or instead trigger unanticipated harm.
August 2022
Estimates of Potential Harm to U.S. Small and Medium Sized Businesses from Proposed Antitrust Legislation Aimed at Large Digital Platforms
This report estimates conservatively that SMB sellers would lose roughly $500 billion in sales in just the first five years after the passage of the proposed antitrust legislation aimed at “Big Tech” companies (i.e., S. 2992).
August 2022
Caps on Apps: Why Fee Caps On Food Delivery Platforms Won’t Help (and Will Likely Hurt) Small Restaurants
This paper reviews some of the available research on the regulation of multi-sided marketplaces as well as specific aspects of the NYC fee cap law and concludes that government-imposed fee caps are bad policy.
July 2022
Small Business Leaders Oppose Anti-Tech Legislation That Will Hurt Their Sales
Small business leaders who are likely voters report that digital technologies are important to their businesses and many are opposed to “anti-tech” legislation that would hurt their ability to use such digital tools and services.
July 2022
How Populist Antitrust Legislation Would Harm the U.S. Tech Startup Ecosystem
This paper analyzes how several pieces of Congressional legislation (notably the American Innovation and Choice Online Act) would disrupt platforms that tech startups heavily rely on.
July 2022
Estimates of Harm to Small Business Retailers from Antitrust Legislation Directed at Large Digital Platforms
This report estimates that if the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) passes, it would cause U.S. small businesses to lose $500B in sales over the next five years.
June 2022
Super Selling: Most Rural Small Businesses Use Multiple Sales Methods
This report details the main results of a survey of small business sellers in rural U.S. areas, with a focus on how they have many options for selling their products both online and offline.
May 2022
Small Business Sellers Value Online Tools and Marketplaces
This new research describes how small business sellers value online marketplaces (and their integrated tools and services), in combination with other sales channels like web-based stores.
May 2022
A New Economic Lens For Exploring the Negative Effects of Digital Platform Antitrust Legislation on American Small Businesses
This paper applies a “platform governance” lens to describe in a detailed way how draft “progressive antitrust” legislation in Congress would harm small businesses.
May 2022
Congress Isn’t Aligned with Small Business Priorities
Congress is pursuing legislation in the middle of economic turmoil that small businesses do not want. Only 7% of SMB leaders consider “increasing regulations on large tech companies” a top business concern right now.
March 2022
Tech Industry Acquisitions and Competition: Counterpoints to an Incomplete FTC Study and Legislation that Relies on It. Part 2. How ‘Big Tech’ Acquisitions of Tech Startups Reflect Enhanced Competition
These new research results call for a reevaluation of policymakers’ assumptions about “big tech” M&A. In particular, they suggest that tech acquisitions are a symptom of healthy competition. (Part 2/2)
March 2022
Tech Industry Acquisitions and Competition: Counterpoints to an Incomplete FTC Study and Legislation that Relies on It. Part 1. Tech Merger and Acquisition (M&A) Activity Fuels Expansion and Innovation Across Many Industries
These new research results call for a reevaluation of policymakers’ assumptions about “big tech” M&A. In particular, they suggest that tech acquisitions are a symptom of healthy competition. (Part 1/2)
February 2022
Super Selling: U.S. Small Businesses In Every Part of the Country Use Multiple Sales Methods
This research report analyzes how modern small businesses in different regions of the U.S. reach their customers and sell their products through a variety of online and offline sales methods.
February 2022
Digital Tools Continue To Unlock Opportunities For U.S. Small Businesses
Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, this report shows that digital tools continue to be an integral part of U.S. small business operations, increasing their agility, resiliency, and ability to adapt to new challenges. Published by the Connected Commerce Council.
February 2022
Competitor Welfare: Why the Open App Markets Act (S. 2710) Benefits the App Store One Percenters – and Perhaps No One Else
We analyzed the Open App Markets Act (S. 2710) from the point of view of small app publishers (small businesses typically with less than 20 employees) whose products make up the broad majority of available smartphone apps across both major app stores.
January 2022
Unintended Consequences: How the “American Innovation and Choice Online Act” (S. 2992) Will Unwittingly Hurt America’s Independent Software Developers and Small App Publishers
This working group of software developers, small app publishers, and other small businesses working in the app ecosystem discussed S. 2992 and its potential consequences.
January 2022
Importance of Targeted Digital Ads To EU Small Businesses Now and During 2022
This survey ascertained the degree to which EU-based small businesses use targeted digital advertising and the importance of that to their businesses. Published by the Connected Commerce Council.
January 2022
Data Catalyst Institute Analysis of S. 2992, the “American Innovation and Choice Online Act”
DCI’s analysis of S. 2992, the “American Innovation and Choice Online Act” suggests that there will be unintended consequences for software developers and small app publishers.
November 2021
Super Selling: How Contemporary Small Businesses Reach Customers and Sell Products
This research report takes an in-depth look at how modern small businesses reach their customers and sell their products through a variety of online and offline sales methods.
October 2021
Super Selling: Most Small Businesses Use Multiple Sales Methods
The evolution of traditional retail alongside the growth of digital selling has created an infinite variety of options and aggressive competition for sellers’ attention, investment and allegiance.
September 2021
Sharpening the Edge: The State Of the Digital Innovation Economy
This report explains how American innovation has traditionally thrived because of sound policy decisions at the federal level. It then discusses several influences on the future growth of digital innovation in the United States.
August 2021
Nightmare on Main Street: The Effects of ‘Populist Antitrust’ on America’s Small Businesses
This Analysis Memo examines important questions Congress and regulators have yet to address the about broad and unintended consequences of Populist Antitrust on U.S. small businesses.
August 2021
Analysis of the House Judiciary Committee Tech Antitrust Legislation and Report Card on ‘Populist Antitrust’
The House Judiciary Committee recently approved bills intended to “enhance antitrust enforcement and restore competition online.” This Issue Brief outlines DCI’s concerns with each bill and then presents a Report Card for the broader “Populist Antitrust” movement.
July 2021
Diners, Drive-Ins, and Data Dives: Data Sharing Between Delivery Platforms and Restaurants
The New York City Council is considering legislation that would require third-party platforms to share consumer data with restaurants. DCI assembled an expert Working Group to discuss issues related to restaurant data sharing, consumer privacy, and innovation.
July 2021
Analysis of the New York City Council Proposed Bill (Int. 2311) – “Data on orders placed through third-party food delivery services”
This Issue Brief outlines DCI’s analysis of New York City Council Proposed Bill (Int. 2311) – “Data on orders placed through third-party food delivery services” – and, ultimately, our argument for reconsidering specific aspects of it that would endanger consumer data privacy.
July 2021
Roaring Twenties or Digital Depression? Unintended Consequences of Antitrust Activism on the U.S. Small Business Economy
This Analysis Memo considers the downstream consequences of increased antitrust regulation of very large tech companies in the U.S. and Europe on the digitally-driven small business economy emerging from the pandemic.
June 2021
Misfire: How the Digital Markets Act Will Unwittingly Hurt European Small Businesses
The Digital Markets Act (DMA) is an EU legislative proposal intended to promote opportunities for new digital companies and services. DCI assembled an expert Working Group to investigate the DMA’s intended and potentially unintended consequences, and how these could affect digitally-empowered small businesses emerging from the pandemic.
June 2021
Enhancing Payroll Protection: Sustainable Financial Wellbeing
This Analysis Memo proposes that small business payrolls are a critical national economic asset and that the U.S. Small Business Administration should experiment with programs for “payroll innovation.”
April 2021
Digitally Driven/2021: U.S. Small Businesses Find a Digital Safety Net for Adaptation, Resilience, and Innovation During COVID-19
As the U.S. looks towards a “post-COVID world,” this report identifies a growing gap between small businesses adopting digital tools and those that remain uncertain and less digitally advanced. Published by the Connected Commerce Council.
April 2021
Achieving the PPP Mission: A Final Prescription and Beyond to Support All of America’s Small Businesses
PPP has failed the smallest small businesses, particularly minority-, women- and veteran-owned businesses. This report from DCI’s PPP Working Group argues that Congress should refine the program with this in mind.
April 2021
Coming to America: Reopening the United States to International Students
This paper reviews current U.S. government restrictions on international students, the resulting educational, economic, and societal effects, and what actions can be taken to reverse the situation.
March 2021
Digitally Driven/Europe: European Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) – Transformation, Innovation, and Resilience During the COVID-19 Pandemic
This report describes how and to what extent digital tools enabled many European small businesses to survive and recover from the economic impact of COVID-19. Published by the Connected Commerce Council.
February 2021
Message in a Model: Stricter Data Regulation Hurts Small Publishers and Advertisers
This Technical Report models the effects of stricter data regulation rules on publishers and advertisers of various sizes interacting in a network.
January 2021
Shocking the System: The Economic Impact of Software Developer Kits
This technical report analyzes the economic value of software developer kit (SDK) releases and demonstrates their effects on the creation of new apps, phone sales, early-stage venture investment, and tech industry hiring.
September 2020
Economic benefits of online marketplaces for U.S.-based small and medium-sized businesses
This report uses a systemic review of available data and literature to estimate the economic value that online marketplaces provide to U.S. small businesses. Published by the Connected Commerce Council.
September 2020
Digitally Driven: U.S. Small Businesses Find a Digital Safety Net During COVID-19
This survey of 7,000+ small businesses shows that digital tools have been critical for their success during COVID-19, providing them with a “Digital Safety Net.” Published by the Connected Commerce Council.
July 2020
DCI Quick Guide: Key Concepts To Know About Data Flow
In this DCI Quick Guide, we define a set of emerging terms used to describe economic and policy-related aspects of the data-driven world.
June 2020
Border Control: The Rise of Data Nationalism
This paper details, breaks down, and analyzes worldwide trends surrounding the rise of data nationalism — defined loosely as the effort by nation-states to ensure control over data for a range of normative and security-based reasons.
June 2020
Gettin’ Paid: Pros and Cons of Data Dividends
The value of data is contextual and determined by how it is being used; at different stages in its production cycle, it has varying degrees of economic utility. Furthermore it is often unclear who “owns” data, and what rights and responsibilities that comes with, as data is often co-created by multiple parties as part of…
May 2020
Digitally Empowered: How digital tools power small businesses amid COVID-19
This report demonstrates how small businesses deployed digital tools during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Published by the Connected Commerce Council with Google.
January 2020
Say It Ain’t So: GDPR Data Regulation Hurts EU Economic Growth
Does government regulation of data measurably affect the economy? This technical report examines the consequences of GDPR for investment in new EU tech startups, concluding its effects are broadly negative.
December 2019
Data Borders: Unintended Consequences of Localization Policies
Data localization, storing data within the borders of a country where it was generated, may enable those countries to benefit from their “data assets.”
December 2019
Backseat Driver: Privacy Implications of Connected Vehicles
Today’s U.S. mass-market cars are increasingly “smart,” with on-board wireless data connectivity that provides a range of services.
November 2019
Mission Critical: Are Tech Platforms Critical Infrastructure?
This paper argues that large technology platforms may qualify as critical infrastructure. Assuming this is the case, the author reviews reasonable industry “good practices” for such companies working with the government to formalize this status.
November 2019
Digital Tightrope: Balancing Innovation and Consumer Protection in the Data-Driven Economy
As the recognition of the value of data in the global economy has steadily risen, so has public interest in how data is owned, transferred, and utilized. This paper explores the delicate regulatory balance between protecting consumer welfare and supporting digital innovation.
October 2019
Pipe Dream: Challenges With Data Portability in India
Proposed legislation in India would grant people a “right to data portability” (RDP), allowing them to retrieve their personal data from data controllers and transfer it to others. This paper analyzes the legally nuanced pros and cons of RDP to determine if it has a net benefit.
September 2019
It’s A Matter of Trust: Exploring Data Fiduciaries in India
An active debate about regulations governing data privacy and data protection that the rest of the world should pay attention to is taking place in India. This paper explores part of that debate — the concept of treating data platforms as ‘fiduciaries’ within the context of Indian law.
September 2019
Let It Flow: Effects of Data Localization Regulations on Small Businesses
How might “data localization” regulations — restrictions on data flow across international borders — affect small business success? This research paper analyzes the challenges and opportunities facing small businesses in India due to such regulation.
September 2019
Data Minors: Challenges With Digital Age Verification
To minimize online risks to children, age-verification systems should be deployed on digital platforms. Our new paper shows all such systems have both pros and cons, and operate differently on different types of platforms and in different countries.
August 2019
An Overview of Data Governance in the Biomedical Economy
How do we develop new tools for governing the massive transformation and expansion of the digital economy? Our white paper explores how the concept of fiduciaries in the medical community might be applied to digital businesses and platforms.
June 2019
Seven Costs of Data Regulation Uncertainty
A patchwork of data protection and privacy regulations across the globe creates uncertainty and innumerable costs for businesses.
January 2019
Storm on the Horizon: How the U.S. CLOUD Act May Interact with Foreign Access to Evidence and Data Localization Laws
The U.S. Clarifying Legal Overseas Use of Data Act also known as the CLOUD Act, was enacted in March 2018…
November 2018
Los Datos como Factores de Eficiencia Económica
El Reglamento General de Protección de Datos (RGPD) entró en vigencia el 25 de mayo de 2018. La regulación busca proteger los datos “desde el diseño y por defecto”, por lo que las empresas deben manejar los datos de acuerdo con un conjunto de principios.
November 2018
Data as a Driver of Economic Efficiency
GDPR became enforceable on May 25, 2018. The regulation aims to protect data by ‘design and default,’ whereby firms must handle data according to a set of principles.
October 2018
GDPR and the Privacy Shake-Up
Time to abandon zero-sum models and shift to positive-sum thinking
October 2018
Acceso a Los Datos,Desafios y Potentcial
Actualmente, muchos países están discutiendo la forma en la cual los datos pueden generar valor público y privado.
October 2018
GDPR and the Privacy Shake-Up(ES)
Con la fecha de implementación de la GDPR acercándose rápidamente, está claro que esta nueva regulación europea de privacidad ha estado sacudiendo a los negocios…
October 2018
Data Protection Law: How It All Got Started
As data professionals, we tend to get trapped in the vicious cycle of “what comes next” and often do not take the time to understand the past.