Richard R. Nelson and Gavin Wright, in Journal of Eco- nomic Literature (Dec. 1992), American Economic Assoc., 2014 Broadway, Ste. 305, Nashville, Tenn. 37203.
For more than a decade, more and more voices have been heard bemoaning the loss of U.S. lead- ership in high technology and calling for a govem- ment-led industrial policy to set things right. What such analysts fail to understand, contend econo- mists Nelson of Columbia and Wright of Stanford, is why the United States had its big technological...