Research and analysis

Measuring the impact of Big Tech firms on the UK economy

This paper proposes an initial methodology to measure the impacts that Big Tech firms have on the UK economy.

This was published under the 2019 to 2022 Johnson Conservative government

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The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) commissioned Economic Insight to develop a research methodology to robustly measure the impacts that Big Tech firms have on the UK economy. This work is currently in its early, exploratory stages.

The methodology paper sets out ways to quantify the contributions of companies to the UK economy in the aggregate, using publicly available data (primarily, employment and GVA).

The framework also takes note of redistributive and spillover effects as well as market structure and competition effects, but accounts for them only qualitatively. The methodology paper then discusses the current limitations of the framework and points to areas for improvement.

Updates to this page

Published 20 July 2022

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