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

Abstract

The author discusses what he perceives as a major gap between the economic concept of externalities as a justification for US Government intervention in the process of developing commercial technology and the direction that, in practice, this intervention appears to be taking. He argues that, unless the economics profession provides an operational concept of externalities for use by decision makers and monitors the application of that concept to specific situations, externalities may be discovered primarily whenever it is politically advantageous to do so.