America's position as the source of much of the world's global innovation has been the foundation of its economic vitality and military power in the post-war. No longer is U.S. pre-eminence assured as a place to turn laboratory discoveries into new commercial products, companies, industries, and high-paying jobs. As the pillars of the U.S. innovation system erode through wavering financial and policy support, the rest of the world is racing to improve its capacity to generate new technologies and products, attract and grow existing industries, and build positions in the high technology industries of tomorrow. Rising to the Challenge: U.S. Innovation Policy for Global Economy emphasizes the importance of sustaining global leadership in the commercialization of innovation which is vital to America's security, its role as a world power, and the welfare of its people. The second decade of the 21st century is witnessing the rise of a global competition that is based on innovative advantage. To this end, both advanced as well as emerging nations are developing and pursuing policies and programs that are in many cases less constrained by ideological limitations on the role of government and the concept of free market economics. The rapid transformation of the global innovation landscape presents tremendous challenges as well as important opportunities for the United States. This report argues that far more vigorous attention be paid to capturing the outputs of innovation - the commercial products, the industries, and particularly high-quality jobs to restore full employment. America's economic and national security future depends on our succeeding in this endeavor.

A wide ranging contribution to the debate about the impact of technological change on economic and social welfare.

This innovative book comprehensively sheds light on the theory and practice of technological policies by employing modern analytical tools and economic techniques. The New Economics of Technology Policy focuses on all public interventions intended to influence the intensity, composition and direction of technological innovations within a given entity such as a region, country or group of countries. Dominique Foray has gathered together many of the leading scholars in the field to comprehensively explore numerous avenues and pathways of research. Bringing together a collection of policy-oriented papers, this book will strongly appeal to policy-makers, academic researchers and graduate students with an interest in economics, public policy, science, technology and society.

Technology's contribution to economic growth and competitiveness has been the subject of vigorous debate in recent years. This book demonstrates the importance of a historical perspective in understanding the role of technological innovation in the economy. The authors examine key episodes and institutions in the development of the U.S. research system and in the development of the research systems of other industrial economies. They argue that the large potential contributions of economics to the understanding of technology and economic growth have been constrained by the narrow theoretical framework employed within neoclassical economies. A richer framework, they believe, will support a more fruitful dialogue among economists, policymakers, and managers on the organization of public and private institutions for innovation. David Mowery is Associate Professor of Business and Public Policy at the School of Business Administration, University of California, Berkeley. Nathan S. Rosenberg is Fairleigh Dickinson Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He is the author of Inside the Black Box: Technology and Economics (CUP, 1983).

Economic policy debates have devoted increasing attention to the design and implementation of policies to aid the growth of high-technology firms and industries. In the United States this focus on `technology policy' has been influenced by similar debates and policy experiments in other industrial economies, notably Japan and Western Europe. The domestic U.S. debate over support for technology development and national competitiveness has been hampered by two major conceptual flaws -- the demand for immediate economic results from basic research and considering national technology policies independent of developments in the international economy. This volume addresses these deficiencies in the analysis of technology policy by examining a number of issues faced by managers and public officials in industrial and industrializing economies that are now linked closely through international flows of goods, capital, and technology. The book lays out an analytical framework for the study of national policies towards technology and science. In addition, the book addresses the complex issues raised by interdependence among the public and private institutions governing the creation, commercialization, and adoption of new technology in different national economies. Finally, the book reviews the development of two global high-technology industries: aerospace and semiconductor components.