s incentives to some companies who no doubt do conduct socially valuable research. With subsidies, the government has more ability to direct the goals of the research it funds, by requiring that the money is provides be used only for research in the area it defines. The costs it assumes here are similar to costs of other policy tools, the initial outlay of money and the possibility of failure to achieve anything beneficial. Yet, subsidies have the important benefit of allowing the government to steer research into areas where there is less of a profit motive.Cooperative Research and Development Agreements as tools for implementing R&D have some identifiable costs and benefits associated with them as well. CRADAs are not procurement tools, but rather business ventures, where the government and the industry are able to share intellectual property arrived at through the research in some agreed upon format. Under a CRADA the government can contribute personnel, services, property, facilities, and equipment (Wong, 4) but not funding. One benefit of CRADAs is that they are a good tool for creating spin-off technology, or technology transferred from the government to the private sector. However, they are not very effective in transferring technology from the private sector to the government.The DoD also may use Cooperative Agreements (CAs) as a tool for R&D spending. These agreements have several variations and have proven to be more conducive to collaborative research and development projects. Besides their ease, CAs also allow for joint ventures in which the government assumes some part of the cost of the R&D being performed. They also allow for recovery of funds, should technology be yielded that proves profitable to the collaborating company. Other Transactions (OTs) are another authorized instrument for DoD R&D funding. These, the most flexible of the tools allowed for the DoD, allows for return of investments for the governme...
