US government support for civilian technology: economic theory versus political practice

Technology push-over: defense downturns and civilian technology policy

“…By demonstrating a technology, the federal government can reduce the uncertainty that inhibits private investment and governmental deployment (Myers, 1979). Although such arguments have received skeptical treatment at times (Eads, 1974;Hill, 1998), claims of market failure accompany most demonstration programs.…”

“…Different writers refer to it under different names, including "socio-technical systems" (Lambright, 1976), "large scale demonstration projects" (Branscomb, 1993), and "technology commercialization programs" (Eads, 1974). Such programs may develop entire systems or simply component technologies.…”

“…In this view, the federal government initiates such programs where a technology is too uncertain, too unfamiliar, or too risky to be adopted either by the private sector or by the non-federal public sector (Cohen and Noll, 1991;Eads, 1974;RAND, 1976). By demonstrating a technology, the federal government can reduce the uncertainty that inhibits private investment and governmental deployment (Myers, 1979).…”

“…The first examines civilian technology policy for demonstration projects, analyzing case studies of system development (RAND, 1976;Burke, 1979;Nelson, 1982;Branscomb, 1993) and occasionally examining political and structural factors shaping policies (Eads, 1974;Cohen and Noll, 1991). This paper seeks to contribute most directly to this literature.…”

Public-private technology R&D partnerships: lessons from US partnership for a new generation of vehicles

“…They are called on to mitigate shortcomings of the marketplace in bringing cleaner and more ef®cient technologies to market. They are called on to reduce the free-rider problem of industries under-investing in socially-bene®cial research and technology (Rosenberg, 1990), they must design cost-effective standards and rules where the marketplace falls short, they must anticipate indirect effects of rules and policies and revise actions accordingly (Eads, 1974), and they must overcome imperfect knowledge and conservative responses of consumers (Norman, 1996). These are daunting responsibilities, especially given their modest human and ®nancial resources, limited knowledge of technological opportunities and costs, and limited understandings of business behavior.…”