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Inadequate investment in innovation is particularly costly in
today's globally competitive environment where continued
technological advancements are critical to sustaining economic
prosperity. The government has a critical role in ensuring that
society's general interest in innovation, and the public good
associated with innovation, is represented in private-sector
decision making. This can be accomplished through a variety of
programs and initiatives that reward innovation at all levels. The
various activities that make this possible fall into two general
categories: (1) the creation and maintenance of a legal environment
that encourages private sector investment in innovation (patents
and the relaxation of antitrust); and (2) the provision of
incentives to overcome the natural inclination of private parties
to consider only their private benefits when choosing the level of
innovation in which to invest (governmental grants and contracts to
targeted tax incentives). The role of government, more
specifically, can be found in three key areas: (1) funding of
research and development performed in the private sector; (2)
funding of Federal laboratory research activities and the effective
transfer of that knowledge to the private sector; and (3)
encouraging the industry-university collaboration in research and
development. It is these three areas of research that generate
technologies fundamental to increasing the rate of technological
development in the private sector, and it is these areas that are
the focus of this book.
This book is about public education reform and the future of pubHc
education funding. Given the many articles, books, and conferences
that have focused on the issue of public education reform, it is
reasonable to ask whether the world needs still another volume on
this subject. In my defense, I would argue that, although there is
a large literature on public education reform, there is precious
little that tries to sketch the big picture. Too often, both in
research and in practice, it is easy to lose sight of the forest,
for all the focus on the individual trees. While such detailed
analysis is of critical value, that value derives both from its
specificity and from its ability to fit into a larger, coherent
whole. Unfortunately, our understanding of the public education
process is still incomplete and disconnected, particularly with
regard to the connections between research, policy, and practice.
This book is an attempt to step back for a moment to get one's
bearings before jumping headlong back into the forest. It is my
hope that this book will be of value to a wide variety of reader-
researchers in departments of economics and schools of education,
policy makers at all levels, and, of course, the practitioners
slogging away in the trenches.
This book is about public education reform and the future of pubHc
education funding. Given the many articles, books, and conferences
that have focused on the issue of public education reform, it is
reasonable to ask whether the world needs still another volume on
this subject. In my defense, I would argue that, although there is
a large literature on public education reform, there is precious
little that tries to sketch the big picture. Too often, both in
research and in practice, it is easy to lose sight of the forest,
for all the focus on the individual trees. While such detailed
analysis is of critical value, that value derives both from its
specificity and from its ability to fit into a larger, coherent
whole. Unfortunately, our understanding of the public education
process is still incomplete and disconnected, particularly with
regard to the connections between research, policy, and practice.
This book is an attempt to step back for a moment to get one's
bearings before jumping headlong back into the forest. It is my
hope that this book will be of value to a wide variety of reader-
researchers in departments of economics and schools of education,
policy makers at all levels, and, of course, the practitioners
slogging away in the trenches.
Inadequate investment in innovation is particularly costly in
today's globally competitive environment where continued
technological advancements are critical to sustaining economic
prosperity. The government has a critical role in ensuring that
society's general interest in innovation, and the public good
associated with innovation, is represented in private-sector
decision making. This can be accomplished through a variety of
programs and initiatives that reward innovation at all levels. The
various activities that make this possible fall into two general
categories: (1) the creation and maintenance of a legal environment
that encourages private sector investment in innovation (patents
and the relaxation of antitrust); and (2) the provision of
incentives to overcome the natural inclination of private parties
to consider only their private benefits when choosing the level of
innovation in which to invest (governmental grants and contracts to
targeted tax incentives). The role of government, more
specifically, can be found in three key areas: (1) funding of
research and development performed in the private sector; (2)
funding of Federal laboratory research activities and the effective
transfer of that knowledge to the private sector; and (3)
encouraging the industry-university collaboration in research and
development. It is these three areas of research that generate
technologies fundamental to increasing the rate of technological
development in the private sector, and it is these areas that are
the focus of this book.
Public sector entrepreneurship refers to innovative public policy
initiatives that generate greater economic prosperity. These
initiatives can transform a status quo economic environment into
one that is more conducive to economic units engaging in creative
and innovative activities in the face of uncertainty. Public Sector
Entrepreneurship traces the historical development of the concepts
of private and public sector entrepreneurship and their connection
to the separate notions of risk and uncertainty. Based on a formal
conceptualization of these notions, the book illustrates throughout
public sector entrepreneurship in practice using examples from U.S.
technology and innovation policy. Technology policy-policy to
enhance the application of new knowledge, learned through science,
to some known problem-and innovation policy-policy to enhance the
commercialization of a technology-are quintessential examples of
the public sector recognizing and exploiting opportunities to bring
about change and efficiency. Using this concept of public sector
entrepreneurship as the lens to view the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, the
Stevenson-Wydler Act of 1980, the R&E Tax Credit of 1981, Small
Business Innovation Development Act of 1982, the National
Cooperative Research Act of 1984, and the Omnibus Trade and
Competitiveness Act of 1988 affords us the ability to find elements
of commonality among these policies and to discuss their impact on
the U.S. economy from the perspective of entrepreneurial action.
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