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Are Ideas Really Getting Harder to Find?

Author

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  • Alston, Julian M.
  • Pardey, Philip G.
Abstract
Bloom et al. (2020) attribute the post-WWII slowdown in growth of U.S. TFP and other productivity measures to a decline in research productivity. A weakness in their approach is that the authors measure research productivity as the annual growth rate of industrial or economywide productivity divided by the number of researchers, contemporaneously. They give no consideration to the stock-flow relationships whereby current research effort gives rise to increments to a stock of depreciable knowledge and hence an evolving path of enhanced productivity over an extended but possibly finite future period. Using examples from agriculture, for which we have comparatively rich data, we revisit established ideas and evidence on links between research spending and productivity. On both conceptual and empirical grounds, we question whether the evidence supports the claim that a decline in productivity of researchers is responsible for the slowdown in productivity growth that has been observed, the large increases in numbers of scientists and in spending per scientist notwithstanding.

Suggested Citation

  • Alston, Julian M. & Pardey, Philip G., 2022. "Are Ideas Really Getting Harder to Find?," Staff Papers 320517, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:umaesp:320517
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.320517
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Nicholas Bloom & Charles I. Jones & John Van Reenen & Michael Webb, 2020. "Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(4), pages 1104-1144, April.
    2. Aghion, Philippe & Howitt, Peter, 1992. "A Model of Growth through Creative Destruction," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 323-351, March.
    3. Rao, Xudong & Hurley, Terrance M. & Pardey, Philip G., 2019. "Are agricultural R&D returns declining and development dependent?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 27-37.
    4. Benjamin F. Jones & Lawrence H. Summers, 2020. "A Calculation of the Social Returns to Innovation," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation and Public Policy, pages 13-59, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Jones, Charles I, 1995. "R&D-Based Models of Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(4), pages 759-784, August.
    6. Robert J. Gordon, 2016. "Perspectives on The Rise and Fall of American Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 72-76, May.
    7. Robert Evenson, 1967. "The Contribution of Agricultural Research to Production," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1415-1425.
    8. Matthew A Andersen & Julian M Alston & Philip G Pardey & Aaron Smith, 2018. "A Century of U.S. Farm Productivity Growth: A Surge Then a Slowdown," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1072-1090.
    9. Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), 2010. "Handbook of the Economics of Innovation," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    10. Chai, Yuan & Pardey, Philip G. & Silverstein, Kevin A.T., 2022. "Scientific Selection: A Century of Increasing Crop Varietal Diversity in U.S. Wheat," Staff Papers 320518, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    11. Huffman, Wallace E. & Evenson, Robert E., 1993. "Science for Agriculture: A Long Term Perspective," Staff General Research Papers Archive 10997, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
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    Cited by:

    1. Pfeiffer, Philipp & Varga, Janos & in 't Veld, Jan, 2024. "Unleashing potential: Model-based reform benchmarking for EU Member States," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).

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    Keywords

    Agricultural and Food Policy; Productivity Analysis;

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