The U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), now the world's preeminent pointing, navigation, and tracking (PNT) system, will in the not too distant future be joined by the European Union's Galileo, a PNT system planned to be similar to GPS in function and performance. Will the two systems cooperate, providing users with the benefits of both, or will they compete? The authors assess the economic impact of competition and how the United States can address that competition, especially as it affects U.S. economic interests.

Is U.S. high-technology manufacturing at risk? In response to the concern that an increasing amount of high-technology manufacturing formerly performed in the United States is now being done overseas, the Office of Science and Technology Policy asked the Rand Corporation to provide analytic support to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. The support included a description of past and current trends of U.S. high-tech manufacturing, a theoretical and empirical economic analysis of traditional and high-tech manufacturing, and an analysis of U.S. research and development statistics and of trends in choices of academic disciplines.