Professor Dan Traficonte’s Article “Government Research” was published in Volume 135, Number 1 of The Yale Law Journal. The Article examines the convergence of innovation, policy, and law.
The Article analyzes government research from an innovation-law perspective by outlining the basic institutional design of government research and, using case studies of the National Institutes of Health Intramural Research Program and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, shows how it works in practice.
Traficonte identifies a particular niche in which government research has clear comparative advantages: high-risk, high-reward projects that require massive scale, interdisciplinary collaboration, and long-term funding. He also explores normative justifications for government research beyond efficient knowledge production, including the building of state capacity for developmental policy and a more equitable distribution of the gains from innovation.
By integrating government research into this broader institutional framework, the Article reaffirms the state’s indispensable role in innovation law and policy and reasserts the values that ought to guide its future development.