Over at @rgumente, Dragos wonders at how small and medium enterprises in Romania can benefit from government research. I can recall one bit of government research that was highly productive (and we could use repeated doses all over the planet). It's an approach spearheaded by Newt Gingrich around when he took over the Congress and the Republicans were in full "Contract with America" mode. He went and gathered business leaders and asked them what were the legal changes that would best cause them to hire additional workers.
In a country like Romania where the law is a horrible mishmash of several constitutional systems, with unnecessary complexity, inconsistent application of the law, and outright pernicious regulation all over the place, a consistent program of identifying the worst of what is wrong with the law and the regulatory regime would be a real positive. Research that analyzes employment effects subsequent to changing the law so that people can measure and see things getting better is also another benefit.
Research doesn't have to be about new products or services to be of use to the SME sector. In the world of the Non-Integrating Gap, identifying and measuring exactly how the government is worsening people's lives and measuring improvements is a real service, no matter who pays for it.
Posted by TMLutas at March 22, 2004 12:25 PM