I would actually guess, it is only that of course, the best statisticians, biochemist etc are in universities not corporations or government. Because I think they don't care that much about money - they like the challenge of research and corporations rarely provide that. Corporations are interested in far more narrow, quick results that bore the cutting edge people (or in the case of deadlines greatly annoy them. The time window for academics and business seems vastly different to me).
I don't think corporations do much cutting edge research in honesty. The era of Bell Labs is long past and the narrow focus on making a profit that has dominated US industry in recent decades makes it very unlikely it will return. Corporations make money by guessin a market niche or narrow technical changes commonly. Not breakthroughs which take decades to bring to fruition. Maybe medicine is different, I have my doubts.
the era of Bell Labs is far from over noetsi. if anything it is
growing at a rate so fast that those who are not experts in each sub-field miss it. take Google X, for instance dedicated purely to the advancement of technology. and although, yes, Google expects that whatever comes out from Google X will be something they can eventually sell, the scientists that work there have A LOT of freedom in terms of what they wish to pursue. or the Statistics and Psychometrics division of research at ETS. all the cutting edge statistical developments and the technology to implement them that came out of it is the main reason of why standardized testing looks the way it looks now. from my friends who have done their internships there (and which i will be doing this coming summer) it looks more like someone telling you "hey, look at this really cool problem. wanna work with us in solving it?". and if you don't like that problem, then you look for another one that catches your interest. but if got work on some standard marketing research firm (or something like that) then yes, i would expect that my creativity would be trumped and my curiosity killed for the sake of having the reports ready by monday at 5pm. but that's got more to do with what i'm willing to do and where i'm willing to work. my skills allow me to go to ETS, so i'll go to ETS so they get to sell more tests and i get to play around with psychometric models all day. my skills also allow me to go work for this nameless marketing research firm but i need to be aware of the sacrifices i would make if i go there.
i think you cast a very wide net (as you usually do) when you say "oh, corporations don't do this or don't do that" when, in fact, there is plenty of opportunity to be a happy camper researcher while working in the private sector.
While politics has a key role in policy, I think much of policy in fact builds on what is accepted knowledge. And that in fact policy changes when policy makers and the public (at least elites) comes to believe something works. That is one reason that political groups in the US have created think tanks such as Cato, Brookings etc. If academics can show that policy X leads to better results than often it has a chance to be pursued. Certainly I have seen that in my own research.
when you say "the public (at least elites) comes to believe something works" then question i ask is something works, but for who? or what are these "better results" you're also talking about? who do they benefit?
if the President comes out with a report saying something like "X works" the opposition parties will come with their own report saying "X is bad, Y works better". if we're talking policy-development, academia simply becomes another political arm of the people in power. if you're a politician i bet you'll be able to find countless of research institutes willing to say whatever you want them to say with the necessary data to back it up. if the President says something like "unemployment has been reduced, here are the numbers" the opposition will say "he's using a flawed definition of unemployment, with this new definition look at how bad things are". or "the question is not about unemployment, we need to talk about UNDERemployment as well". who is correct? well, depends on who you want to believe. but as an academic who gets into politics and wants to make a mark, you'll believe whoever is paying you. heck, sometimes you don't even have to be into politics
and will still bend the truth in whichever way you see fit.