Does manufacturing extension matter? An evaluation of the Industrial Technology Extension Service in New York

Building on pioneering state programs in the 1980s, new federal initiatives call for a significant expansion in the scale and scope of manufacturing extension efforts in the United States. This article presents an evaluation of one effort to spur industrial modernization - the Industrial Technology Extension Service (ITES) in New York State. Based on both qualitative and quantitative analysis, the evaluation suggests that the ITES program has had a favorable impact on many companies with respect to cost reductions and increased productivity. The article discusses some of the difficult methodological issues in evaluating these types of programs and includes a series of recommendations on strengthening future evaluations to yield more definitive results.