Abstract
The starting point to consider a governmental design for informational society which meets the proposed criterion of promoting a high rate of discovery, invention and innovation is to examine the evolution of the political economy since 1790. In this examination a consideration of the development of incentives and institutional arrangements for discovery, invention and innovation is important in order to forecast future advances. Hence, the new governmental design should focus on making improvements which are unlikely to evolve from the current design.
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Notes and References 2
For a discussion of the economic conditions at the end of the colonial period see any text in American economic history. For example, Hughes, J., 1990, American Economic History, 3rd edition, (Scott, Foresman and Company: Glenview)
The weaknesses of the confederation are detailed in the Federalist Papers
Taylor, T., 1955, Grand Inquest, (Simon and Schuster: New York)
Roche, John P., 1961, The Founding Fathers, American Political Science Review, Vol 55
For example see modern copy of: Hobbes, Thomas, 1640, Leviathan, Locke, John, 1705, Of Civil Government and Rousseau, J., 1763, The Social Contract
While the concept of a judicial review is not specifically spelled out in the Constitution, a majority of the framers believed the judiciary had this power. See Sundquist, James L., 1986, Constitutional Reform and Effective Government, (The Brookings Institution, Washington)
Historical Statistics, Ser. F10-21, p139. For a summary see North, D.C., 1974, Growth & Welfare in the American Past, (Prentice-Hall,Inc.: Englewood Cliffs, N.J.)
North, Douglass C., 1965, The Role of Transportation in the Economic Development of North America, Les grandes voies maritimes dans le monde XVe–XIXe siecles, Paris
Veysey, Laurence R., 1965, The Emergence of the American University, (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago)
Gunderson, G., 1976, A New Economic History of America, (McGraw-Hill: New York)
Rosenberg, Nathan, 1972, Technology and American Economic Growth, (Harper Torchbooks: New York)
See reference 11 and for comment on McCormick see: Bruchey, Stuart, 1975, Growth of the Modern American Economy, (Dodd, Mead and Company: New York)
For a survey of the innovations in business organization, see: Chandler, Alfred D. Jr., 1977, The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business, (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press: Cambridge)
That is not to say that the social rate of return on government’s efforts to promote transportation faster than the market would have, was necessarily positive. For example, in the case of canals, see: Ramson, Roger, 1964, Canals and Development: A Discussion of the Issues, American Economic Review, LIV, NO. 2 15. Gwynne-Thomas, E. H., 1981, A Concise History of education to 1900 A.D., (University Press of America, Inc.: Washington)
Posner, R. A., 1986, The Economic Analysis of Law, 3rd Ed, (Little Brown, Boston)
Hazard, L., 1971, Law and Changing Environment: History and Process of Law, (Holden-Day: San Francisco)
See reference 10
See: Berle, A. A. and G. C. Means 1933, The Modern Corporation and Private Property, (The Macmillan Company, New York), Hurst, J. W., 1970, The legitimacy of the Business Corporation in the United States, 1780–1970, (University press of Virginia: Charlottesville) and Liebhafsky, H. H., 1971, American Government and Business, (John Wiley & Sons, Hew York)
Stanback, T., P. Bearse, T. Voyelle and R. Karasek, 1981, Services the New Economy, (Allanheld, Osmun Publishers: Totowa, NJ)
For a theory concerning the growth of government, see: Higgs, R., 1987, Crisis and Leviathan: Critical episodes in the growth of American government, (Oxford University Press: New York)
For a contrast between the early liberal view of the Progressive period with the radical view compare: Hofstadter, R., 1955, The Age of Reform, (Alfred A. Knoop: New York) with Kolko, G., 1963, The Triumph of Conservatism, (The Free Press: New York). Subsequent writers have tended to balance the two positions.
For a survey of the depression see: Mitchell, B., 1960, Depression Decade: From New Era through New Deal 1929–1941 (Rinehart & Company, Inc.: New York)
For example for a survey of the Johnson’s Great Society see: Divine, R. A. (ed), 1981, Exploring the Johnson years, (The University of Texas Press: Austin) and for a survey of the increase in regulation see: Weidenbaum, M.L., 1977, Business, Government, and the Public, (Prentice-Hall, Inc.: Englewood Cliffs)
Garcia vs San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 1985, 105 S.Ct 1005. This decision reflects the cumulative changes in Supreme Court interpretation of the 10th amendment.
Stine, Jeffrey K., 1986, A History of Science Policy in the United States, 1940–1985, Report prepared for the task force on science policy, Committee on Science and Technology, House of Representatives, (U.S. Government Printing office, Washington, DC) NSF report on science policy
See reference 11
For example, by 1880 a majority of engineers were university trained. See: Ray, John, 1979, The application of science to industry, in Oleson, A. and J. Voss (eds.) The Organization of Knowledge in Modern America, 1860–1920, (The John Hopkins University Press: Baltimore)
For a reference to the development of industrial research see: Lewis, W. D., 1967, Industrial Research and Development in Kranzberg, M. and C. W. Pursell Jr. (eds), Technology in Western Civilization Vol II (Oxford University Press: London). For an interesting account of the development of industrial research at GE and Bell see: Reich, Leonard S., 1985, The Making of American Industrial Research: Science and Business at GE and Bell, 1876–1962 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge)
Appel, K. and W. Haken, 1977, The Solution of the Four color-map Problem, Scientific American, October, pp 108–121
A famous article of the social rate of return of agricultural research is: Griliches, Z., 1958, Research Costs and Social Returns: Hybrid Corn and Related Innovations, Journal Political Economy, October, pp 419–31.
Dertouzos, Lester, and Solow point out that one of the deficiencies of American manufacturing managers is the failure to innovate new strategies. See: Dertouzos, M., R Lester and R. Solow, 1989, Made in America: Regaining the Productive Edge, (The MIT Press: Cambridge)
Knezo, Genevieve, 1986, Research Policies for the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Report prepared for the task force on science policy, Committee on Science and Technology, House of Representatives, (U.S. Government Printing office, Washington, DC) NSF report on science policy
The ruling in US v. Morton Salt Co., 338 U.S. 632 gave administrative agencies this power.
For a discussion, see, for example: Roethlistberger, F. J., 1941, Management and Morale, (Harvard University Press: Cambridge)
Hausman, J. A. and D. A. Wise (eds), 1985, Social Experimentation, (The University of Chicago Press: Chicago)
Sundquist, James L., 1982, The Decline and Resurgence of Congress, (The Brookings Institution: Washington)
Grubb, W. N., D. Whittington, and M Humphries, 1984, The ambiguities of benefit-cost analysis: An evaluation of regulatory impact analyses under executive order 12291, in Smith, V. K. Environmental Policy under Reagan’s Executive Order: The Role of Benefit-Cost Analysis, (The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill)
Olson, Mancur, 1971, The Logic of Collective Action, (Harvard University Press, Cambridge)
One of the first public choice theorists to consider individual incentives in politics was Downs. See: Downs, A. 1957, An Economic Theory of Democracy, (Little, Brown, Boston) The analysis presented is a variant of bounded rational choice theory. For a readable, nontechnical survey of current social choice theory the interested reader might consider: McLean, Iain, 1987, Public Choice: an Introduction, (Basil Blackwell: Oxford)
Logrolling does not necessarily converge to a stable solution. For example, see: Dummett, M., 1984, Voting Procedures, (Clarendon Press: Oxford)
Dolan, R. and H. Lins, 1987, Beaches and Barrier Islands, Scientific American, Jul, pp68–77
The usual connotation of government efficiency is waste in the sense of using an excessive amount of resources to produce a given amount of output. A second type of inefficiency is producing an inappropriate amount of the public good. Niskanen argues that budget maximisation by bureaucrats leads to excessive amounts of public goods. See: Niskanen, W. A., 1971, Bureaucracy and Representative Government, (Aldine: Chicago)
See Hume, David, 1739, Treatise of Human Nature
Popper, Karl R., 1959, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, (Basic Book, Inc.: New York)
Derthick, Martha and Paul J. Quirk, 1985, The Politics of Deregulation, (The Brookings Institute: Washington)
For example, reference 31 contains a proposed program of innovations to improve manufacturing productivity.
Friedman, M and A. Schwartz, A History of Monetary Policy since 1867–1960, (Princeton University Press, Princeton)
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(1993). The Past. In: Informational Society. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-32028-1_2
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