Index > Tech. Innovation > 2021-02-16: Going over Week 3 Discussions

2021-02-16: Going over Week 3 Discussions

There is no class next tuesday - the term project intro has been moved to next Thursday in an optional/recorded meeting.

There is a discussion post due this week.

Review: Justifications for Intervention

Government typically justifies intervention with four reasons:

• To correct for market failure
  • Knowledge is a public good, and tends to be under-produced by the private market
• Knowledge Spillovers
  • New knowledge in one field can help others
• Private market invests less in basic science
  • Basic science is a building block for more applied technology
• To correct for a systemic failure
  • Innovation may slow if market and “non-market” organizations interact poorly

Remember that Demand Pull is one of innovation’s driving forces. Induced Innovation is the theory of how factor prices impact an innovation’s desirability.

Example: electricity subsidies in Venezuela have lead to massive bitcoin mining operations, despite the regulatory risks

Presentations

Each group is going over their submission from the Week 3 discussion.

• Group 1
  • Valued IoT the most, with 40% of funding
• Group 2
  • My audio died, I spent this time fixing it
  • I think they valued IoT the least
• Group 3
  • Wind > Nano > Genome > IoT
  • Says intervention is less needed for IoT, but regulation is needed
• Group 4
  • Wind > Genome > Nano > IoT
  • Nano is long term, IoT has already run its course
• Group 5
  • Wind > Nano > Genome / IoT tied
  • Contrasting group 3, IoT funding went towards developing good regulation

Science and Technology (S&T) Policy

Concerned with the allocation of government resources for scientific research and technical development.

• Policy for Science: regulate the thing
• Science for Policy: The science says…
• Policy for Technology: regulate the thing
• Technology for Policy: New tech informs policy decisions

Government has historically supported research and development.

How do we measure government S&T policy?

Tasks

• Review the rest of the slides
• Discussion question will be posted later today

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Index > Tech. Innovation > 2021-02-16: Going over Week 3 Discussions