Inward international licensing by US-based firms: Trends and implications

This paper reviews US statistics on international transactions in royalties and license fees to provide insights into the inward international licensing of technology by US-based firms. The data and their limitations are described. Trends in the data suggest that a change is occurring in the balance between outward and inward licensing of technology by US-based firms. The statistics are consistent with the idea that such firms have a diminishing technological lead and that technology importing, in addition to technology exporting, is becoming important to them. The new situation raises issues for corporate strategy and technology management, as well as for government policy. Mary Ellen Mogee is president of Mogee Research & Analysis Associates, a consulting firm in Great Falls, VA. She established the firm in 1985, after 15 years in policy-analysis positions at the National Science Foundation, the Congressional Research Service, the National Bureau of Standards, and the Patent and Trademark Office. She also teaches in the Management of Science, Technology, and Innovation program in the School of Business and Public Management at the George Washington University. Mogee received her Ph.D. in political science and an MA in science, technology, and public policy from George Washington University.     

Myth and reality: The causes and persistence of poverty

Policies directed at alleviating poverty rest on a set of assumptions regarding the demographic composition of the poor and the psychological dispositions of poor individuals. Evidence from a long-term study of a representative sample of low-income individuals shows that poverty is very widespread but not usually very persistent, and that the characteristics of the persistently poor do not conform to the conventional wisdom. Furthermore, the economic status of the poor does not appear to have been caused by psychological dispositions. Intergenerational data from the same study show generally weak links between the poverty or welfare status of parents and that of their children. Public policies for dealing with poverty can be properly devised without attempting to resocialize poor people and without undue concern that poverty programs will generate dependency among the majority of those they help.