2012-01-05-美国商务部-The_Competitiveness_and_Innovative_Capacity_of_the_United_States_160页_4mb

Competitiveness and Innovative Capacity of the United States

Executive Summary Overview:
The U.S. economy, dominant in the 20th century through innovation, faces challenges in the 21st. Alarms include stagnant job growth, wage stagnation, manufacturing decline, and slipping innovation competitiveness. Key pillars supporting past strength—federal support for basic research, education, and infrastructure—remain crucial but face cracks. Recommendations focus on sustaining federal funding for basic research, enhancing the R&D tax credit, improving education (especially STEM), investing in modern infrastructure, revitalizing manufacturing, fostering regional clusters, and promoting entrepreneurship through programs like Startup America.

Key Findings & Recommendations:

1. Federal Support for Research and Development (R&D):

   • Basic research has public good attributes, justifying federal funding to correct market failures.
   • Recommendations: Sustain government funding for basic research; enhance and extend the R&D tax credit to incentivize private investment; streamline technology transfer from federal labs to commercial applications.

2. Educating Our Workforce:

   • STEM workforce is growing but educational attainment in STEM fields needs improvement.
   • Challenges: Underperformance in K-12 STEM education, affordability issues in college, demographic disparities in STEM fields.
   • Recommendations: Expand STEM educational initiatives (e.g., "Educate to Innovate" partnerships), increase diversity in STEM, address college affordability, and develop proof-of-concept centers to bridge research and market.

3. Infrastructure for the 21st Century:

   • Modern infrastructure changes, with focus on broadband, energy grids (Smart Grid), and wireless communications.
   • Challenges: Lag in broadband adoption, particularly in rural areas; aging energy grid; spectrum crunch for wireless.
   • Recommendations: Increase investment in broadband and wireless infrastructure; modernize the energy grid; promote sustainable manufacturing initiatives.

4. Revitalizing Manufacturing:

   • U.S. manufacturing faces decline but remains critical for innovation, employment, and exports.
   • Challenges: Offshoring, trade barriers, and high costs stifle growth.
   • Recommendations: Revitalize manufacturing through targeted policies, public-private partnerships, and tax reforms to support domestic production.

5. The Private Sector as the Engine of Innovation:

   • Private sector innovation driven by regional clusters and entrepreneurship.
   • Challenges: Barriers to starting businesses, difficulties accessing foreign markets, and complexities in intellectual property (IP) enforcement.
   • Recommendations: Promote entrepreneurship through initiatives like Startup America; enforce effective IP protection both domestically and internationally to support exports.

Moving Forward—Key Policy Recommendations:

• Continue federal support for basic research and enhance the R&D tax credit.
• Improve STEM education and address affordability.
• Accelerate technology transfer and broaden data access.
• Foster regional innovation clusters and entrepreneurship.
• Promote exports and enforce fair trade practices.
• Reform corporate taxes and strengthen intellectual property enforcement.
• Increase spectrum allocation for wireless.
• Modernize infrastructure to support advanced manufacturing.

This summary addresses the core elements of the provided report, focusing on key findings, challenges, and recommendations without markdown formatting.