Technology, innovation, and regional economic development

In recent years state and local governments, universities, and private sector groups have become increasingly active in promoting technological innovation and technology-based business development in their local economies. These efforts have resulted in productive new forms of partnership and cooperation at all levels. While federal programs have sometimes supported these efforts, and while recent changes in federal policy have improved the climate for high technology development initiatives, in most cases both the initiative and the ongoing leadership have come from imaginative state and local leaders. This five-chapter report provides: (1) an overview of high-technology development (HTD); (2) a definition and analysis of high-technology industries; (3) a discussion of entrepreneurship and venture capital in HTD; (4) a discussion of state and local government, university, and private sector initiatives for HTD; and (5) an examination of the federal role in regional HTD. Three reports are appended: they concern (1) the theoretical base for high-technology location and regional development, (2) a regional assessment of the formation and growth in high-technology firms, and (3) a preliminary investigation of recent evidence on high-technology industries' spatial tendencies. One factor examined in the latter report is the nature and diversity among high-technology industries in both growth performance and locational tendencies. (JN).