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1. Clean Energy Pragmatism as a Spark for US-South Korea Relations

Author:
Elan Sykes
Publication Date:
12-2024
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI)
Abstract:
The United States and South Korea are close allies, committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and home to advanced industrial economies. Pragmatic cooperation on clean energy technologies would aid their shared goals in climate mitigation, energy security, and supply chain resilience. US-South Korea cooperation should include pooling shared technological expertise, aligning market and carbon accounting rules, investing in constrained supply chains, and adopting well-targeted policies to encourage research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) projects for early-stage technologies like clean hydrogen and advanced nuclear power plants. Clean energy pragmatism requires acknowledgment of the constraints facing each country to ensure policies are properly scoped, politically durable, and revised iteratively in light of observed outcomes. Neither country can succeed in this multidecadal transition alone. With their shared industrial capacity, world-class innovators engaged in joint research and development, and properly aligned market standards, however, both countries can solidify their position to achieve 21st-century energy security and economic growth. Yet, policy design and implementation are never complete unless a problem is entirely solved, and climate change is not a problem that can be solved over a single presidential term. Political shifts hold the potential to either undo progress or help spur new action.
Topic:
International Relations, Science and Technology, Renewable Energy, Supply Chains, and Research and Development
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, North America, and United States of America

2. Techno-Geopolitics and US Support for India’s Quantum Ambition

Author:
Vibhanshu Shekhar
Publication Date:
11-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
US support would plug an important gap in India’s quest for quantum tech—access to a robust quantum ecosystem. This access is essential for the development of quantum research and technologies in India.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Science and Technology, Geopolitics, Quantum Computers, and Research and Development
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and United States of America

3. Reimagine: Clean Energy Technology and U.S. Industrial Policy

Author:
Jonas Nahm
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:
Historically, the United States has been the largest public investor in clean energy research and development (R&D). U.S. research institutions and private firms continue to hold a technological lead in many next-generation technologies that could make the transition away from fossil fuels cheaper and more efficient. Such technologies include next-generation solar photovoltaic technologies, advanced battery chemistries, and software to manage complex energy systems, including those with high penetrations of wind energy. Although the United States was an early leader in clean energy R&D and continues to make major technological advances, it has, over time, fallen behind in the commercialization and manufacturing of the technologies developed domestically. This study reviews U.S. industrial policy for clean energy sectors and argues that other economies have more frequently used proactive industrial policies to support the development of domestic clean energy technology industries. Too often, the United States has not mounted an equivalent industrial policy response. The U.S. government has instead focused more narrowly on funding the invention of new technologies and, intermittently, supported domestic markets for clean energy technologies through federal and state programs. Such policies have included, for instance, federal R&D grants for universities, research institutes, and the private sector, as well as subsidies and regulations to support the growth of clean energy markets at the federal and state level. This U.S. approach to encouraging the growth of domestic clean energy industries has assumed that market failures primarily exist in innovation. Since firms cannot in all cases reap all the gains from investments in the development of new technologies, they are likely to underinvest in innovation, creating a need for governments to supplement private-sector investments in R&D. The U.S. approach to clean energy industrial policy also assumes that investments in R&D will eventually spur the growth of domestic industries if combined with sufficient market demand. Yet U.S. industrial policy has not addressed key institutional shortcomings in segments of clean energy supply chains that are not well supported domestically, particularly in scaling new technologies to mass manufacturing. As a consequence, many technologies developed with public R&D funding failed to reach domestic mass production, as firms were unable to make the investments required to bring the technologies to market domestically. The report develops four recommendations to improve the competitiveness of domestic clean energy industries. First, the United States should establish a state development bank that could fund domestic manufacturing projects in sectors, such as clean energy, that have struggled to raise financing from U.S. financial institutions. The scarcity of capital for clean energy manufacturing has prevented domestic startups from raising the financing required to commercialize and produce their technologies domestically. Second, the U.S. government should ramp up investments in vocational training programs that would meet the workforce needs of growing clean energy manufacturing sectors. Third, the federal government should set stable regulatory requirements and binding targets for clean energy markets as part of a national strategy for competitiveness in clean energy sectors. This would reduce uncertainty injected by the intermittent and fragmented nature of current government support for clean energy sectors and create incentives for the private sector to invest in domestic supply chains for clean energy technologies. Fourth, the United States should limit the use of trade restrictions as industrial policy tools and instead focus on improving the competitiveness of domestic clean energy firms through proactive industrial policies. Trade restrictions can limit the ability of domestic clean energy firms to source materials, parts, and components through global supply chains; may lead to increased prices in ways that can harm domestic clean energy service industries; and obstruct the climate diplomacy needed to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. At the moment, geopolitical shifts, strategic competition with China, and the ripple effects of the war in Ukraine provide a political opening for the consistent deployment of more ambitious industrial policies. The United States should use this opportunity or risk falling behind other economies, including those in Europe, that have made the development of domestic clean energy supply chains central elements of their response to climate change.
Topic:
Green Technology, Industry, Research and Development, and Energy
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4. The evolving contribution of R&D, advertising and capital expenditures for US-listed firms’ growth in sales, 1979-2018: A quantile regression analysis

Author:
Joel Rabinovich
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
City Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC), University of London
Abstract:
This article presents new insights on the evolving contribution of different types of investments to the growth in sales of US nonfinancial listed firms during the 1979-2018 period. By means of quantile regressions it is observed an increasing contribution over time of intangible investment vis-à-vis a decline in capital expenditure both for high-growth and slow-growth firms. However, the impact of different types of intangible investment differs depending on the kind of firm. Whereas research and development (R&D) has a positive contribution for high-growth firms, only advertising has a positive effect for their slow-growth peers.
Topic:
History, Investment, Research and Development, Firm Growth, Quantile Regression, and Intangibles
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

5. Enabling US Government Participation in Pull Mechanisms for Social Impact Innovation: A Survey of Federal Authorities, Budgetary Barriers, and Potential Solutions

Author:
Steven Kosiak and Rachel Silverman
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
United States government support for scientific and technological research and development (R&D)—across sectors including but not limited to energy, agriculture, and health—has the potential to save lives, reduce global poverty, and help address the most pressing global challenges. Traditionally, the US government has funded most R&D via grants and contracts (“push” funding), directly subsidizing and defraying the up-front R&D costs. An alternative approach—“pull” funding—would use the promise of future sales and/or other revenue to indirectly justify up-front expenditures in R&D, thereby “pulling” innovations to market. Despite several theoretical and practical advantages of “pull” funding, US government use of this approach has thus far been limited, in part due to regulatory and legal barriers. Yet across the entirety of the US government, there are nonetheless creative and interesting approaches to support innovation which include pull elements. To help the US government make broader use of pull approaches, this policy paper surveys the ways in which US government authorities, budgetary rules, and procurement approaches either facilitate or constrain use of pull mechanisms to support R&D. It specifically focused on the budgetary “scoring” issues that can affect, and sometimes hinder, the use of such mechanisms. It concludes with a discussion of potential legislative changes and workarounds to budgetary scoring challenges that might facilitate expanded use of these mechanisms.
Topic:
Governance, Budget, Innovation, and Research and Development
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

6. Why U.S. Immigration Barriers Matter for the Global Advancement of Science

Author:
Ruchi Agarwal and Patrick Gaule
Publication Date:
10-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
While talent can be born anywhere, few places specialize in nurturing it. Accordingly, talented individuals have pursued opportunities abroad for centuries. For instance, Aristotle moved from Northern Greece to Athens to attend Plato’s Academy and then to Macedonia to tutor a young Alexander the Great. More recently, the United States has emerged as a hub for foreign talent, playing an outsized role in the global knowledge network of scientific activity in recent decades. However, the recent introduction of restrictive immigration policies in the United States may adversely impact scientific activity. While studies have examined the potential negative impact of restrictive U.S. immigration policies on U.S. competitiveness in science and innovation, there has been less focus on understanding how U.S. immigration barriers may in turn impact scientific activity globally. In this context, our work studies the impact of U.S. immigration barriers on global knowledge production and examines which policy actions are more likely to help advance the global knowledge frontier.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Immigration, Border Control, and Research and Development
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

7. From Research to Market:What the EU can learn from the USA?

Author:
Jekaterina Novikova
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
Abstract:
The research project “From Research to Market: What the EU can learn from the USA” addresses the gap between the laboratory research and market. I examine how government, universities and private companies facilitate the transition of research results to market in the USA. In the report I present various programs that are available to the researchers and entrepreneurs in the US and invite to consider them for implementation in Europe. I argue that different stages of lab-to-market transfer require different mechanisms that should not be limited to funding but include technology transfer assistance and advice on intellectual property, mentoring by peers and industry mentors and access to the laboratory space and incubators. I conclude that the Bay Area answer to closing the lab-to-market gap is by a combination of support mechanisms that reinforce and complement each other, when implemented simultaneously. I invite to discuss which of the US initiatives and programs described in this report shall be promoted in Europe and at which level.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Governance, European Union, and Research and Development
Political Geography:
Europe, North America, and United States of America