http://www.innovations.harvard.edu This area discusses new technology and capacity development as it relates to government agencies and e-commerce. en-us Copyright 2009, Government Innovators Network Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:47:00 -0500 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:47:00 -0500 info@innovations.harvard.edu http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/showdoc.html?id=2626 Access to broadband is widely recognized as a prerequisite for a community's economic welfare and the delivery of government services. However, no systematic data document the nature and status of municipal broadband initiatives, the comparative effectiveness of alternative policies for promoting broadband access, or their implications for local economic development, private provisioning of infrastructure ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/showdoc.html?id=66 Environmental policy discussions increasingly focus on issues related to technological change. This is partly because the environmental consequences of social activity are frequently affected by the rate and direction of technological change, and partly because environmental policy interventions can themselves create constraints and incentives that have significant effects on the path of technological ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/showdoc.html?id=75491 http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/showdoc.html?id=8365 This document provides information about administrative reform in the United Kingdom and is part of a series published by the Centre for Administrative Innovation in the Euro-Mediterranean Region.   The United Kingdom Government has embarked on an ambitious strategy concerning the modernisation of the government with the final aims of creating new opportunities for people to ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/showdoc.html?id=2541 Electronic rulemaking, or e-rulemaking, offers the potential to overcome some of the informational challenges associated with developing regulations. E-rulemaking refers to the use of digital technologies in the development and implementation of regulations. The use of these technologies may help streamline and improve regulatory management, such as by helping agency staff retrieve and analyze ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/showdoc.html?id=477 The Keystone Dialogue on Global Climate Change brought together approximately 30 representatives from environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs), industry, and the research and technical communities. The purposes of the dialogue were (1) to review the magnitude and timing of carbon dioxide (CO2) reductions required globally and by the United States to achieve four concentration ceilings ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/showdoc.html?id=53 There is increasing interest within the environmental policy community in assessing the factors that affect technological change. This interest is linked with two realities: first, the costs of compliance with environmental regulations are determined, in part, by the cost and availability of alternative production and abatement technologies; and second, regulations themselves can affect the nature ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/showdoc.html?id=4868 Over the past decade, the United States and many European countries have developed new approaches to environmental policy that are voluntary, collaborative, and information-based. These programs are attempts to engage industry in significant environmental improvements through dialogue, consensus-building, and voluntary action rather than the imperatives of direct regulation or the incentives ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/showdoc.html?id=43 Information technology holds the potential for improving the process by which government makes regulatory decisions affecting vital aspects of society and the economy. This article charts new directions for research on the application of information technology to regulatory policymaking. Drawing on the deliberations from two recent workshops organized by Harvard University's Regulatory Policy ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/showdoc.html?id=4703 This report describes the nonlethal weapons and equipment currently used (October 2004) by the Department of Defense (DOD) and the U.S. Coast Guard, as well as less-lethal devices used by a number of local law enforcement agencies and the U.S. Marshals Service. http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/showdoc.html?id=5604 Due to the externalities associated with energy production and consumption, public policy is necessary to provide a stimulus for the development and diffusion of more environmentally sound energy technologies. Based on an in-depth history of technological development for four electric power technologies, this paper draws lessons for the design of future policies to promote innovation in energy ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/showdoc.html?id=2592 Through the example of the General Service Administration's (GSA), an analysis of how technology-enabled transformation entails breaking old habits, learning to do business in new ways, and adopting a radically different approach to serving your customers.  Since nearly all the incentives in government work against all of these things, strong leadership is so indispensable to achieving ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/showdoc.html?id=4971 What role will distributive electricity technologies play in meeting future demand? Policy makers are divided on the answer.  For some, these technologies represent the foundations from which a decentralized electricity system could be established—one in which small, clean generating systems gradually replace the existing system of large centralized power stations. To others, they represent ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/showdoc.html?id=3412 This article surveys the effects of technology on mortgage finance during the 1990 to 2000 period, focusing on the individual firm. Innovations in the three functional areas of origination, servicing, and portfolio management are identified and their effects discussed. Broader questions regarding the effect of increased efficiency on industry structure, consumer welfare, and housing affordability ... http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/showdoc.html?id=3408 Understanding how the introduction of new technology impacts firms and in turn impacts workers has increasingly become important in the past two decades ? particularly understanding the dynamic consequences of firms' decision to invest in advanced technology such as computers. Yet little is known about this interaction ? measures of human capital at the firm level have been very limited, detailed ...