Three years ago Caterpillar opted not to follow competitors down the conventional research path and instead gambled on a new technology it believed would be more efficient.

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Pharmaceutical companies say that high monopoly rents on new medicines assure incentives for high-risk research on future path-breaking medicines and pay for past efforts that resulted in failure.

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Economic research has shown that the path to prosperity is not money creation but getting the institutions right, and thus getting prices right.

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To answer that question, we here at CEB fielded research studying the B2B customer and purchase path.

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Investment in basic research, through our universities and research institutions, that yields licensable technologies, is a more prudent path for the allocation of public resources.

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CRISIL, an impressive outfit, is furthest down this path with half its sales from abroad, mainly from helping banks with equity research and risk-management models, demand for which has soared thanks to more regulation in the rich world.

ECONOMIST: Credit-rating agencies

Standing beside scale models of research stations on Mars and the moon, Miller said the project will encourage commercial ventures to follow the path NASA blazes into space.

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