Since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, American politics has been dominated by the idea that 'œfree markets' are the most effective way to organize economic activity. Private firms, disciplined by the competitive rigors of the market, are forced to innovate, adapt, and become more efficient in order to outpace rivals, continuously satisfy consumers, and meet new demands. Government, in this view, is 'œthe problem': regulation, taxation, and policy interventions disrupt open competition, stifle innovation, and breed inefficiency. But the 'œdirty' secret behind the façade of the 'œWashington consensus' is that over the last four decades, government programs and policies have quietly become ever more central to the American economy. From 'œbasic research' to commercialization, the fingerprints of government can be found in virtually every major industrial success story of the late 20th and early 21st century. This volume provides the first comprehensive account of the depth, magnitude, and structure of the U.S. government's role in the innovation economy. A cross-disciplinary group of authors collectively document, theorize, and evaluate the decentralized set of agencies, programs, and policies at the core of the collaborative linkages between public agencies and the private industries at the forefront of the U.S. economy. Equally important, as the U.S. seeks to recover from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the volume addresses issues critical to the construction of newly responsible, forward-looking public policies: how can we forge an innovation policy that is at once flexible, effective and efficient, as well as transparent and accountable?

Fred Block is an economic and political sociologist at the University of California-Davis. He has been studying U.S. innovation policies since 2006 with support from the Ford Foundation. Matthew R. Keller is an Assistant Professor at Southern Methodist University. His research explores shifts in intellectual and political trends and their relation to government organization and policy.