Public research institutions and economic catch-up

Public research institutions, often but not always connected with universities, have been in the past important elements of the structures supporting economic catch-up. Recent changes in the international economic environment, and the growing scientific basis for contemporary technologies, will make those institutions even more important in the future. Universities and public labs have contributed to the development of technological capabilities in different forms across countries and economic sectors. In contrast with current emphasis on university-based embryonic inventions and fundamental research, effective research programs have predominantly occurred in the application-oriented sciences and engineering, and have been oriented towards problem-solving, and the advancement of technologies of interest to a well-defined user-community.     

In search of useful theory of innovation

This essay presents an overview of the prevailing theoretical literature on innovation, probes the adequacy of existing theory to guide policy regarding innovation, and sketches some directions for more fruitful theorizing. The focus is on the vast interindustry differences in rates of productivity growth, and other manifestations of differential rates of technological progress across industries. It is argued that the most important policy issues involve finding ways to make the currently lagging sectors more progressive, if in fact that can be done. Theory, to be useful, therefore must organize knowledge and guide research regarding what lies behind the uneven performance of the different economic sectors. In fact prevailing theory cannot do this, for two basic reasons. One is that theory is fragmented, and knowledge and research fall into a number of disjoint intellectual traditions. The second is that the strongest of the research traditions that bear on the differential innovation puzzle, research by economists organized around trying to ‘fit’ production functions and explain how production functions ‘shift’, neglects two central aspects of the problem; that innovation involves uncertainty in an essential way, and that the institutional structure supporting innovation varies greatly from sector to sector. The bulk of the paper is concerned with sketching a theoretical structure that appears to bridge a number of presently separate subfields of study of innovation, and which treats uncertainty and institutional diversity centrally.     

Metacognitive processes and associations to executive function and motivation during a problem-solving task in 3–5 year olds

Metacognition and Learning - Metacognition—knowledge, monitoring, and regulation of cognition—is key to learning and academic achievement. This is robustly supported for K-12 and higher...     

A taste for science? PhD scientists’ academic orientation and self-selection into research careers in industry

Recent research on industrial and academic science draws on the notion that academically trained scientists have a strong “taste for science”. However, little attention has been paid to potential heterogeneity in researchers’ taste for science and to potential selection effects into careers in industry versus academia. Using survey data from over 400 science and engineering PhD students, we examine the extent to which PhD students’ taste for science (e.g., desire for independence, publishing, peer recognition, and interest in basic research) and other individual characteristics predict preferences for research careers in industry versus academia. Our results suggest that PhD students who prefer industrial employment show a weaker “taste for science”, a greater concern for salary and access to resources, and a stronger interest in downstream work compared to PhD students who prefer an academic career. Our findings have important implications for innovation research as well as for managers and policy makers.     

农户参加新型农村合作医疗项目的影响因素分析

本文以农户参与新型农村合作医疗项目的决策行为为例,探讨农户大病风险处理行为及参加新农合的影响因素.本文分析认为,农户比较购买医疗保险和自我保险的预期效用来决定是否参加"新农合";农户比较正规和非正规医疗保障成本高低实现净收益最大化.农户参与"新农合"的决策受到资源禀赋、疾病风险特征和"新农合"制度环境因素的影响.本文最后提出了相关政策建议.     

Report to the President on the Use of Technology to Strengthen K–12 Education in the United States: Findings Related to Research and Evaluation

The Panel on Educational Technology was organized in April 1995 under the auspices of the President's Committee of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST) to provide advice to the President on matters related to the application of information technologies to K–12 education in the United States. Its findings and recommendations were set forth in March 1997 in the Report to the President on the Use of Technology to Strengthen K–12 Education in the United States. This report was based on a review of the research literature and on written submissions and oral briefings from a number of academic and industrial researchers, practicing educators, software developers, governmental agencies, and professional and industry organizations involved in various ways with the application of technology to education. Its most important finding is that a large-scale program of rigorous, systematic research on education in general and educational technology in particular will ultimately prove necessary to ensure both the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of technology use within our nation's K–12 schools. Finding that less than 0.1 percent of our nation's expenditures for elementary and secondary education are currently invested to determine which educational techniques actually work, and to find ways to improve them—an extremely low level relative to comparable ratios within the private sector—the Panel recommended that this figure be increased over a period of several years to at least 0.5 percent, and sustained at that level on an ongoing basis. Further, because no one state, municipality, or private firm could hope to capture more than a small fraction of the benefits associated with a significant advance in our understanding of how best to educate K–12 students, the Panel concluded that such funding will have to be provided largely at the federal level in order to avoid a systematic underinvestment (attributable to a classical form of economic externality) relative to the level that would be optimal for the nation as a whole. This paper originally appeared as Section 8 of the report.