The Effects of U.S. Public R&D on Global Growth

Gustavo de Souza, Andrew Fieldhouse, Karel Mertens, Ishan Nath and Valerie Ramey
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Ishan Nath: https://www.frbsf.org/our-people/economists/ishan-nath/

No 2622, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

Abstract: This paper provides the first causal estimates of the global social returns to U.S. public R&D. We use a narrative identification strategy to quantify the effects of exogenous shocks to U.S. R&D appropriations on the dynamic TFP response of 69 foreign economies from 1980–2019. A U.S. R&D appropriations shock equal to 1 percent of the federal R&D capital stock raises foreign TFP by approximately 1 percent after 12 years. This response is driven primarily by nondefense rather than defense R&D and is concentrated in non-OECD economies. These patterns are most consistent with diffusion occurring through openly accessible scientific content, capital-embodied trade and technological leapfrogging by economies further from the global frontier. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the global social returns to U.S. public nondefense R&D are roughly twice as large as the domestic returns, meaning the U.S. captures about half of these productivity benefits.

Keywords: Public R&D; International R&D Spillovers; Social Returns to R&D; Productivity; Technological Diffusion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E62 F62 O33 O38 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-08-04
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DOI: 10.24149/wp2622

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