Abstract
Innovation has long been recognized for providing benefits to society far beyond those that accrue to any particular participant in the private sector, and for being an important contributor to economic growth.1 Unfortunately, in the absence of governmental intervention, private-sector participants will only consider their own particular benefits when choosing the appropriate level of commitment to the innovation process. This results in what economists call “market failure.”
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Cohen and Noll (1991), in their book on Federal R&D projects to stimulate private-sector commercial technology, provide a review of the empirical evidence of the link between innovation and economic growth. They also discuss other “quasi-economic” benefits of innovation including national prestige, national security (both directly through defense-related technologies and indirectly by providing the Nation with leverage in international relations), and political stability.
Bozeman and Link (1983), for example, summarize these arguments.
See Council on Competitiveness (1989).
See U.S. Department of Commerce (1990).
See Carnegie Commission (1991) and Council on Competitiveness (1989).
See Council on Competitiveness (1991). In fact, this poll also revealed that 73 percent of these voters blame the U.S. government “a great deal” or “quite a bit” for the competitive problems now facing this country.
See Executive Office of the President (1990).
This model was proposed in Link and Tassey (1987) and recently extended in Tassey (1991, 1992).
See National Science Board (1991) for these data -- the most recent data that are available.
The National Science Foundation (1990) definition of basic research includes “the cost of research projects which represent original investigation for the advancement of scientific knowledge and which do not have specific immediate commercial objectives (although they may be in the fields of present or potential interest to the… company).”
According to Link (1991), a survey of 62 Federal laboratories indicated that 29 were engaged in 1990 in infratechnology research. In that year these 29 laboratories invested $1.2 billion in infratechnology research, or, on average, 38 percent of their total budget. See Chapter 4.
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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Leyden, D.P., Link, A.N. (1992). Defining Government’s Role in Innovation. In: Government’s Role in Innovation. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2936-7_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2936-7_1
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