Are ideas getting harder to find?

Nicholas Bloom, Charles Jones, John van Reenen and Michael Webb

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Long-run growth in many models is the product of two terms: the effective number of researchers and their research productivity. We present evidence from various industries, products, and firms showing that research effort is rising substantially while research productivity is declining sharply. A good example is Moore's Law. The number of researchers required today to achieve the famous doubling of computer chip density is more than 18 times larger than the number required in the early 1970s. More generally, everywhere we look we find that ideas, and the exponential growth they imply, are getting harder to find.

JEL-codes: D24 E23 O31 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2020-04-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro and nep-tid
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (192)

Published in American Economic Review, 1, April, 2020, 110(4), pp. 1104 - 1144. ISSN: 0002-8282

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/104481/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find? (2020)
Working Paper: Are ideas getting harder to find? (2017)
Working Paper: Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find? (2017)
Working Paper: Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find? (2017)
Working Paper: Are ideas getting harder to find? (2017)
Working Paper: Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find? (2017)
Working Paper: Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find? (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:104481

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