Ideas for Growth?

David Mare

No 293001, Motu Working Papers from Motu Economic and Public Policy Research

Abstract: There is much talk of the knowledge economy, and the central role of ideas and knowledge in generating economic growth. This paper provides a brief review of the economic literature on how skills/ knowledge/ ideas might contribute to higher output or higher rates of growth. Ideas are complementary inputs into production, in the sense that they raise the productivity of other inputs. Some of the complementarities may give rise to externalities—effects that do not have to be paid for. For investments in ideas to generate output growth, these complementarities must be particularly strong. I conclude with some comments on what policy makers can draw from the literature, which is some encouragement but little specific guidance.

Keywords: Productivity Analysis; Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26
Date: 2003-07
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/293001/files/03_19.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:ags:motuwp:293001

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.293001

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Motu Working Papers from Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().