REGULATORY POLICY ANALYSIS: WORKING IN A QUAGMIRE

The authors review five "definitions-in-use" that characterize regulatory policymaking and policy analysis. They survey these contradictory meanings and argue that the common use of all five has adversely affected efforts to reform and study government regulation.     

Improving federal technology commercialization: Some recommendations from a field study

This study identified three distinct roles of the federal technology-transfer process in the Huntsville, Alabama region: sponsors, developers, and adopters. The basic structure of transfer barriers and measures during the prospecting and developing of the federal technology-transfer process is also discussed. Sponsors attributed transfer problems to adopters' lack of awareness, while developers cited long development and payback times. Adopters admitted their lack of transfer expertise and their resistance to technologies with long paybacks. None of the role-players were measuring technology transfer very well. While sponsors agreed with adopters that long-term outcome measures were important, sponsors relied on measures of input effort and intermediate results. Developers with the most transfer experience reported the lowest use of measures. Recommendations are made for each role to help improve federal technology transfer.     

Industrial Policy and the States

The emergence of industrial policy proposals on the nationalscene raises the prospect of a greater role for the states inAmerican economic policy. Four types of industrial policy proposalsare described, each representing a distinctive strategic orientation.After describing the implied role of states in each type, weargue that state involvement is politically necessary if anyproposal is to succeed in the national policymaking arena. Weassess the four strategic proposals in light of that contentionand conclude that two of the approaches—infrastructureinvestment and subnational jurisdiction proposals—havean advantage over the better known trade policy and sectoraltargeting strategies.     

AMERICAN STATES AND THE INDUSTRIAL POLICY DEBATE

The current popular debate over industrial policy tends to be Indifferent to the possible relevance of economic policies in American states. The states are not only very active in this arena through their Industrial and economic development efforts, but also have untapped potential for influencing business decisions. As an integral part of the Amerlcan economic policy arena, states cannot and should not be ignored by industrial policy advocates. Some constitutional, policy, and programmatlc implications of this point are briefly discussed.