Government Support of Clean Technology Research in West Germany: Some Evidence

摘要

Research and development of pollution abatement equipment and clean technologies have been sponsored by the West German Federal Ministry of Research and Technology (BMFT) for more than ten years. This paper evaluates a subset of BMFT sponsored projects. The authors define and describe a number of important project characteristics dealing with the contents as well as with the institutional arrangement under which they are conducted. The empirical analysis of some interrelationships among these characteristics seems to show that projects granted to business firms tend to cost more than those awarded to universities. They are also more often directed towards the development of the final stages of the technology under study than those conducted by universities. By the same token, projects carried out by teams of industry and university researchers tend to cost less and to be devoted to the development of the initial stages of the technology under study. Since the paper is of a preliminary nature, it has no firm conclusions but contains a few remarks on the set up of the given institutional arrangement and its appropriateness for the advancement and the proliferation of knowledge on pollution abatement equipment and clean technologies. (ERA citation 11:050867)