Government R&D expenditure and space: Empirical evidence from five industrialized countries

In all industrialized countries several ministries pursue technology policies, but only in Germany and France are there special ministries for research and technology carrying out explicit technology po:icy. In the USA, Great Britain and France, in particular, public spending on defense is most relevant technologically. In this study, this kind of unintended technology policy will be referred to as ''implicit'', Only a minor part of national R&D activity is initiated with regional goals in mind, The major part by far aims for national competitiveness. The central hypothesis of this paper is that government R&D spending generates unintended spatial effects which are far more consequential than the intended ones, This study attempts to explain the phenomenon, The technology policies of the five major industrialized countries (USA, Germany, Japan, France and Great Britain) will be analyzed and the general tendency of governments to spatially 'cluster' their R&D assistance will be discussed. The empirical section of this paper focuses on the relationship between government R&D spending and employment in the high-technology sector.