The Therapeutic Consequences of the War: World War II and the 20th-Century Expansion of Biomedicine

Daniel Gross and Bhaven Sampat

No 33457, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: During World War II, the U.S. Committee on Medical Research (CMR) undertook an integrated, cross-sectoral effort to develop medical science and technology for war, representing the U.S. government's first substantial investment in medical research. Although it had mixed results during the war, using data on all CMR research contracts we show that it laid a foundation for the postwar takeoff of the U.S. biomedical innovation system. New and emerging research areas it supported experienced rapid growth in postwar science. It also fueled new postwar drug development, influenced medical practice, and shaped extramural research funding at the National Institutes of Health. These changes were accompanied by growing interdependence between science and technology and between firms, universities, and the federal government, reflecting biomedicine's increasingly systemic character. The evidence points to the long-run effects coordinated, integrative research policy can have in spurring the development of innovation systems and shifting technology sectors into a high-investment, high-growth development path.

JEL-codes: H51 H56 N42 N72 O31 O32 O33 O38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-his, nep-ino and nep-tid
Note: DAE EH PE PR
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