Advanced Technology Program Challenges and Opportunities (1999) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Preface
Preface
Pages 1-10
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 1... ...
Dnven both by the exigencies of national defense and the requirements of transportation and communication across the American continent, the federal government has played an instrumental role in the development of new production techniques and technologies. In the early years of the republic, the federal government laid the foundation for the first machine tool industry with a contract for interchangeable musket parts.)
|
From page 2... ...
At the industnal level, there were "major collaborative initiatives in pharmaceutical manufactunng, petrochemicals, synthetic rubber, and atomic weapons."4 An impressive array of weapons based on new technologies was developed during the war, ranging from radar and improved aircraft, to missiles and, not least, the atomic bomb. Following the war, the federal government began to fund basic research at universities on a significant scale, first through the Office of Naval Research and later through the National Science Foundation.5 Dunng the Cold War, the United States continued to emphasize technological superiority as a means of ensuring U.S.
|
From page 3... ...
The new economic growth theory emphasizes the role of technology creation, which is believed to be characterized by significant growth externalities.7 A consequence of the renewed appreciation of growth externalities is recognition of the economic geography of economic development. With growth externalities coming about in part from the exchanges of knowledge among innovators, certain regions become centers for particular types of high growth activities.8 In addition, some economists have suggested limitations to traditional trade theory, particularly with respect to the reality of imperfect international competition.9 Recent economic analysis suggests that high-technology is often characterized by increasing rather than decreasing returns, justifying to some the proposition that governments can capture permanent advantage in key industries by providing relatively small, but potentially decisive support to bring national industries up the learning curve and down the cost curve.
|
From page 4... ...
Accordingly, these topics were taken up by STEP in a study earned out in conjunction with the Hamburg Institute for Economic Research and the Institute for World Economics in Kiel. One of the principal recommendations for further work emerging from that study was a call for an analysis of the pnnciples of effective cooperation in technology development, to include lessons from national and international consortia, including eligibility standards and assessments of what new cooperative mechanisms might be developed to meet the challenges of international cooperation in high-technology products.~4 In many high-technology industnes, the burgeoning development costs for new technologies, the dispersal of technological expertise, the growing importance of regulatory standards, and environmental issues have provided and A.S.
|
From page 5... ...
.~7 The rapid expansion of some programs encountered significant opposition, rekindling the national debate on the appropnate role of the government in fostering new technologies. Indeed, broader philosophical questions about the appropriate role for government in collaborating with industry have tended to obscure the need for policy makers to draw lessons from current and previous collaborative efforts.
|
From page 6... ...
economy developed and the supportive role the government played in its development, careful assessment of support for new technologies can be called for because government intervention in the market can be fraught with nsk. There are cases of major success resulting from federal support to the computer or semiconductor industnes, where the Department of Defense served as a source of R&D and as a reliable, early buyer of products and later through its support for SEMATECH.20 2i There are also cases of major frustration.
|
From page 7... ...
They have adopted a wide range of policies from trade regulations designed to protect domestic products from foreign competition, to tax rebates intended to stimulate the export of selected domestic products. They provide government R&D funding for enterprises of particular interest, and sometimes give overt support through direct grants, loans, and equity investments or more opaque support through mechanisms such as tax deferral.26 Data collected by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development suggest that worldwide government expenditures on support for high-technology industries involve significant resources and are increasingly focused on what policy makers consider to be strategic industries.27 The United States is an active, if unavowed, participant in this global competition, at both the state and the federal level.
|
From page 8... ...
. To carry out this analysis, the STEP Board has assembled a distinguished multidisciplinary steering committee for this assessment of government-industry partnerships, chaired by Gordon Moore, the Chairman Emeritus of Intel (the Committee is also listed in the front matter)
|
From page 9... ...
Dr. John Horrigan deserves special recognition for his instrumental role in preparing the report and for his many substantive contributions to the introduction.
|
From page 10... ...
10 PREFACE objective of this volume is to capture the different perspectives of the participants on the objectives, operations, and assessment of the Advanced Technology Program and thereby contribute to a better understanding of the program and the role of government and industry in bringing new technologies to the marketplace. Charles W
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.