Knowledge generation and transfer mechanisms are being transformed in important and controversial ways. Investment in research and development has increased in response to recognition that scientific productivity is tightly connected to economic dynamism. Patent protection has been expanded in order to stimulate higher levels of private investment. Intellectual property rights held by public organizations and researchers are now increasingly transferred to private organizations to accelerate the diffusion and enhance the value of knowledge produced by public agencies and universities. Additionally, new institutions such as university offices of technology transfer, venture capital markets, and a variety of consortia in knowledge-intensive industries are being established throughout the United States and in other parts of the world. These changes have led to a repositioning of the state in systems of innovation and an increase in the proprietary character of technical information. The purpose of this book is to review and analyze i) contemporary transitions in agricultural knowledge generation and extension arrangements from an empirical perspective, and ii) emerging and contradictory perspectives as to how knowledge systems can be assessed effectively. The authors aim to provide the reader with a better understanding of the implications of new biotechnologies and new intellectual property rights regimes on public-private relations in science, the extent to which benefits from scientific knowledge are being appropriated by private sector actors, the diversity and possible outcomes of privatization initiatives in extension, and prospects for public goods production and ecological sustainability given contemporary trends. The book presents contrasting views on the degree of complementarity and substitution between private and public sector investments in research and extension. Recognizing that the labels `public' and `private' are incomplete and at times misleading descriptions of the structure and function of coordinating bodies in social systems, the analyses highlight ways in which public and private spaces and modes of functioning combine. In addition to illustrating a broad range of analytic methodologies useful for studying organizational questions in knowledge systems, the authors identify the implications of a range of past and potential institutional innovations.

Contemporary capitalistic systems have been undergoing profound transformations determined by the transition towards the so-called knowledge based economy, i.e. a competitive system based on the capabilities firms have to create, use and circulate knowledge. These transformations concern both the characteristics of productive and innovative processes, and the resources used in these activities. This book captures these changes, where traditional R&D investments undertaken internally by firms are increasingly and strategically complemented by external sources of innovation and new knowledge. Collaborations between firms, and between firms and other organizations, as well as the mobility of human capital, are strategic processes in order to share and circulate knowledge and competencies. They are also key determinants in the creation of new knowledge and innovation, and ultimately in growth dynamics. The circulation and distribution of knowledge is now a key input in the production of knowledge. Knowledge and innovation are understood as the result of collective and interactive processes at the system level, and less at the micro level. In other words, new knowledge production is less and less the result of individualistic behaviours of the firms and much more the effect of explicit and pro-active interactions and transactions put in place by local networks of innovators. In this perspective, economic space is much more defined by the quality of the interactions among actors rather than by their mere technological, sectoral or geographical proximity. This book brings together new conceptual and empirical contributions and blends the analysis of the technological and geographical spaces in which innovation and knowledge are produced.

Over the past few decades, US business and industry have been transformed by the advances and redundancies produced by the knowledge economy. The workplace has changed, and much of the work differs from that performed by previous generations. Can human capital accumulation in the United States keep pace with the evolving demands placed on it, and how can the workforce of tomorrow acquire the skills and competencies that are most in demand? Education, Skills, and Technical Change explores various facets of these questions and provides an overview of educational attainment in the United States and the channels through which labor force skills and education affect GDP growth. Contributors to this volume focus on a range of educational and training institutions and bring new data to bear on how we understand the role of college and vocational education and the size and nature of the skills gap. This work links a range of research areas—such as growth accounting, skill development, higher education, and immigration—and also examines how well students are being prepared for the current and future world of work.

This book is the English version of the text published by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean in April 2008 and entitled Generación y protección del conocimiento: propiedad intelectual, innovación y desarrollo 1 económico. Since then, the year that has passed has been fraught with uncertainty but has also brought signs of hope. Indeed, the past year was marked by the outbreak of the deepest and most p- vasive nancial and economic crisis since the Great Depression of 1929, a crisis generated in the United States but whose negative repercussions have spread at a phenomenal rate throughout the planet. The impact of this crisis on the p- ples of Latin America and the Caribbean will undermine the region’s prospects for economic growth, employment, and poverty alleviation. This was the year in which United States citizens elected Barack Obama as their President, a clear sign of new hope. This hope was tangible at the Fifth Summit of the Americas, held in 2009 in Port of Spain, which marked a turning point in the relations between the countries that make up this hemisphere. The open posture of the United States and that country’s readiness to listen rather than to impose any particular position and its willingness to engage in dialogue on an equal footing were positive signs. Moreover, it was generally admitted that there is not just one model for advancing successfully toward development.

Pt. 1. The ingredients -- pt. 2. The governance of localised technological knowledge -- pt. 3. The introduction of localised technological change.

This comprehensive and innovative Handbook applies the tools of the economics of complexity to analyse the causes and effects of technological and structural change. It grafts the intuitions of the economics of complexity into the tradition of analysis based upon the Schumpeterian and Marshallian legacies. The Handbook elaborates the notion of innovation as an emerging property of the organized complexity of an economic system, and provides the basic tools to understand the recursive dynamics between the emergence of innovation and the unfolding of organized complexity. In so doing, it highlights the role of organizational thinking in explaining the introduction of innovations and the dynamics of structural change. With a new methodological approach to the economics of technological change, this wide-ranging volume will become the standard reference for postgraduates, academics and practitioners in the fields of evolutionary economics, complexity economics and the economics of innovation.

In the twenty-first century, the production and use of scientific knowledge is more regulated, commercialized, and participatory than at any other time. The stakes in understanding those changes are high for scientist and nonscientist alike: they challenge traditional ideas of intellectual work and property and have the potential to remake legal and professional boundaries and transform the practice of research. A critical examination of the structures of power and inequality these changes hinge upon, this book explores the implications for human health, democratic society, and the environment.