2006) “Do High Technology Policies Work? High Technology Industry Employment Growth in U.S. Metropolitan Areas, 1988-1998” Social Forces 85

Since the 1970s, federal, state and local governments have launched an array of new high technology development programs. Researchers and policy-makers disagree about the relative merits of these policies. We address the effects of seven of these policies on high tech industry employment growth in metropolitan statistical areas in the United States between 1988 and 1998. A conditional change score design shows that technology grant/loan programs and technology research parks have direct effects net of location and agglomeration factors. Five of seven programs positively interact with existing agglomeration advantages to create growth in high technology industry employment. Technology development programs compensate for deficits in agglomeration resources. Our results suggest that high-technology development can be planned by designing programs that magnify existing local growth advantages. Since the early 1970s, state and local governments have launched a wide array of new economic development programs to promote high tech development. Popularly called "third wave, " "new industrial " and "entrepreneurial " policies, these initiatives entail direct state intervention in the creation of new enterprises, products, markets and technologies. By helping to identify market opportunities, fostering local innovation capacities, and making public investments in new technology and private enterprises, these governmental programs have attempted to promote "risky but potentially productive undertaking(s) that would not have gone forward without governmental support. " (Eisinger 1988:230) These initiatives involve direct governmental intervention in the creation of new technology, products, markets and enterprises. We focus on seven majo