Since the late 1980s, the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) has been a prominent vehicle used to support collaboration between US federal laboratories and private firms. This paper examines the structure and goals of one of the most ambitious CRADAs conducted to date, the EUV CRADA, which involves three Department of Energy laboratories and leading US firms in the semiconductor industry and is aimed at the development of next-generation lithographic technologies. This large project is an important case study in ‘post-Cold-War’ technology policy and government-industry collaboration. Although the EUV project represents significant improvements in the design and management of CRADAs, it also illustrates the inherent difficulties of balancing political and economic goals in complex technology development programs.

The recent zero-priced award of $11–70 billion in digital TV (DTV) licenses by the federal government occurred when auctions had been initiated for non-broadcast licenses and when the seven decade-old regime of ‘public trusteeship’ in broadcasting had become famous for licensee reneging on promised obligations. Policymakers nonetheless declined to auction DTV licenses when enacting the Telecommunications Act of 1996, rejecting a plea from the Senate Majority Leader. This paper provides an overview of the episode and investigates three basic questions. (1) Why does Congress continue a regulatory system that routinely fails to provide the benefits it is supposed to generate? (2) Why did the National Association of Broadcasters propose high definition television as a way of keeping land mobile operators off an unused spectrum? (3) Why did Congress delegate to the FCC the decision to award licenses for digital television broadcasting?

Business plays a critical yet poorly understood role in trade policymaking. This paper develops an analytical framework that focuses on the distribution of business trade preferences, the forces that cause those preferences to change, and the ability of different groups to exert political influence over policy. It then applies this framework to Mexico in the 1980s and 1990s. Large, exporting firms increased their weight due to shifts in the international context, the condition of the domestic economy, and previous government policies. Policymakers granted political access to actors whose economic and political leverage had risen, typically those who controlled numerous investment resources and sought out a direct role in policymaking. Many of these actors also favored free trade. Business participation in trade policy reflects these patterns. Large, outward-oriented firms played an increasingly important role in Mexico's adoption of free trade policies over the 1980s and early 1990s.

This paper analyzes the evolution of corporate governance and regulation in privatized telecommunication companies in the four largest EU economies. A political-economy approach is used to test the validity of the convergence hypothesis, which posits that globalization should produce convergence in business practices, ownership patterns, and regulatory frameworks. While there are signs that the structure of ownership and monitoring in continental Europe is adopting some of the features of the Anglo-Saxon arms-length governance system, corporate decisions remain shaped by durable national institutions and distinctive political traditions regarding the role of the corporation in society, the “just” level of executive remuneration, the concept of universal service, and the involvement of the state in corporate restructuring.

The examination of the U.S.—Japan conflicts from the mid-1980s to early 1990s over the space industry sheds light on our understanding of the Japanese political economy. The Japanese response to U.S. pressure was not so strategic as conventional wisdom suggests. Under U.S. pressure, Japan shifted to international cooperation, abandoning the autonomous development policy it had sought for four decades. This unexpected policy change primarily resulted from the lack of clear jurisdictional authority among the government actors over the rapidly changing space industry. This study's findings will apply to other high technology industries such as telecommunications and information technology, where bureaucratic boundaries are ambiguous and technological change is rapid.