The Changing Structure of American Innovation: Some Cautionary Remarks for Economic Growth

Ashish Arora (), Sharon Belenzon, Andrea Patacconi and Jungkyu Suh

Innovation Policy and the Economy, 2020, vol. 20, issue 1, 39 - 93

Abstract: A defining feature of modern economic growth is the systematic application of science to advance technology. However, despite sustained progress in scientific knowledge, recent productivity growth in the United States has been disappointing. We review major changes in the American innovation ecosystem over the past century. The past three decades have been marked by a growing division of labor between universities focusing on research and large corporations focusing on development. Knowledge produced by universities is not often in a form that can be readily digested and turned into new goods and services. Small firms and university technology transfer offices cannot fully substitute for corporate research, which had previously integrated multiple disciplines at the scale required to solve significant technical problems. Therefore, whereas the division of innovative labor may have raised the volume of science by universities, it has also slowed, at least for a period of time, the transformation of that knowledge into novel products and processes.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/705638 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/705638 (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

Related works:
Chapter: The Changing Structure of American Innovation: Some Cautionary Remarks for Economic Growth (2019)
Working Paper: The Changing Structure of American Innovation: Some Cautionary Remarks for Economic Growth (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:ipolec:doi:10.1086/705638

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Innovation Policy and the Economy from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().