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伦敦—当今主流经济学的传统观点是政府没有多少刺激创新的能力。这一观点认为，国家在经济中所扮演的角色应该尽可能小，只在“市场失灵”时出手干预。这远非现实。
事实上，政府应该也确实在刺激创新方面起着关键作用——积极建立新市场而不仅仅是修补它们。诚然，支持政府经济角色应该有限的人认为市场失灵证明有必要为基础设施和基础科学提供一些资金。但这一有限的干预很难解释数十亿美元流向下游应用研究、甚至为公司提供早期融资的现象。事实上，在一些全球最著名的创新枢纽中，国家扮演着重要的“企业家”角色，谋划建立全新领域并提供融资，包括信息技术、生物技术、纳米技术和绿色技术等。
比如，在硅谷，政府通过一个分散的公共机构网络扮演着战略投资者的角色，这一网络包括美国国防部先进研究项目局（Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency）、美国宇航局（NASA）、小企业创新研究计划（Small Business Innovation Research program，SBIR）、国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）等。
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