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Us Manufacturing Extension Partnerships: Technology Policy Reinvented, Philip Shapira
Us Manufacturing Extension Partnerships: Technology Policy Reinvented, Philip Shapira
Philip Shapira
The US manufacturing extension partnership (MEP) is examined as an example of the new partnership paradigm in US technology policy. The MEP provides technology assistance services, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises. Influenced by aims to reinvent government and reorient technology policy, the MEP seeks to be comprehensive, collaborative, and demand-driven. However, the MEP’s partnered management style is constrained by political and industrial systems that continue to operate on traditional lines. After probing these tensions, the paper offers insights for the MEP’s future development and for other technology and innovation policies that seek to emulate the MEP’s partnership approach.
Agglomeration, Enterprise Size, And Productivity, Edward J. Feser
Agglomeration, Enterprise Size, And Productivity, Edward J. Feser
Edward J Feser
Much research on agglomeration economies, and particularly recent work that builds on Marshall's concept of the industrial district, postulates that benefits derived from proximity between businesses are strongest for small enterprises. This paper investigates this hypothesis, examining the degree to which local business externalities differ in magnitude and type among large and small enterprises in two U.S. manufacturing sectors. A four factor micro-level production function with oft-cited sources of agglomeration economies (local input supply, labor pools, knowledge spillovers) modeled as technology parameters and dummy variables representing varying definitions of plant size (and type, i.e., single or multi establishment unit) are …