Regulatory competition in the digital economy: new forms of protectionism

Abstract

The article examines regulatory competition in the post-industrial digital economy. It has been established that regulatory competition is realized by means of the new forms of protectionism, the neo-protectionism, the imperative of which is to stimulate social and economic development and economic growth of the country by creation of new comparative advantages in the post-industrial digital economy. The forms of manifestation of regulatory competition in the post-industrial economy include: policy to encourage and promote the development of technologies in the field of artificial intelligence (innovative neoprotectionism); discriminatory policies that restrict information and communication technologies and digital commerce (digital neo-protectionism); policy of restraint and restriction of data flows (information neo-protectionism). The phenomenon of innovative, digital and information neo-protectionism as a component of the international economic policy of the countries-leaders of their application has been revealed. Innovative neo-protectionism has been identified as a new type of protectionism that aims to increase national innovation capacity and increase exports of advanced industries by manipulating the global trade system. It has been established that digital neo-protectionism is an instrument of state intervention aimed at increase of a country's productive capacity by development of a new comparative advantages in the digital economy, which is realized through a set of stimulating (encouraging the formation and development of new sectors that will create new means of production, where new products will be produced, new services will be provided, and new business models will be promoted) and discriminatory (implementation of barriers to digital commerce, including censorship, filtering, localization and privacy regulations) measures. Information neo-protectionism has been proposed to be interpreted as a policy of restricting information flows of a commercial nature in favor of domestic companies, which reduces the ability of buyers and sellers to interact, and companies – to carry out international trade and financial