Standards and innovation: US public/private partnerships to support technology-based economic growth

Our explanation of the link from standards to economic growth and development is through the effects of standards on the incentives to perform industrial R&D.1 Our case studies juxtapose the opinions of industrial experts with the theory of investment in R&D to provide evidence that standards implemented via strategic alliances – firms receiving the support of standard-setting organizations (SSOs) and national laboratories,

Troy J. Sco ta a John . c ttb

aRTI International, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA; bDepartment of Economics, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

and also the alliance of government, labor, consumers, and firms to implement regulatory standards – do leverage economic growth and development. Moreover, we explain and illustrate how net social value would be increased with additional public funding for a prominent public/private partnership to develop socially valuable technology for the automobile industry.