Creativity-Enhancing Technological Change in the Production of Scientific Knowledge*

Albert Link and John Scott

No 19-7, UNCG Economics Working Papers from University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics

Abstract: We view scientific publications as a measure of technical knowledge. Using the Solow method of functional decomposition and scientific publication data from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, we find that 79 percent if the increase of scientific publications per unit of scientific personnel is explained by an increase in federal R&D capital per unit of scientific personnel. We describe the unexplained or residual 21 percent as a measure of creativity-enhancing technological change, a phenomenon that offers a way to reverse the perceived slowing of the productivity of science. The explained 79 percent offers a possible metric for federal laboratories' mandated reporting of a ROI to federal R&D. Understanding the drivers of the residual 21 percent could enable public policy to mitigate the resource constraints caused by the breakdown of exponential growth of the resources devoted to science.

Keywords: scientific publications; technological change; R&D; knowledge production function (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O33 O38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2019-06-17
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff, nep-gro, nep-ino, nep-knm and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Journal Article: Creativity-enhancing technological change in the production of scientific knowledge (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:uncgec:2019_007

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