Ideas and Growth / Robert E. Lucas, Jr..

By:

Lucas, Robert E, Jr

Contributor(s):

National Bureau of Economic Research

Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w14133.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2008.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

O1 - Economic Development

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Abstract: What is it about modern capitalist economies that allows them, in contrast to all earlier societies, to generate sustained growth in productivity and living standards? It is widely agreed that the productivity growth of the industrialized economies is mainly an ongoing intellectual achievement, a sustained flow of new ideas. Are these ideas the achievements of a few geniuses, Newton, Beethoven, and a handful of others, viewed as external to the activities of ordinary people? Are they the product of a specialized research sector, engaged in the invention of patent-protected processes over which they have monopoly rights? Both images are based on important features of reality and both have inspired interesting growth theories, but neither seems to me central. What is central, I believe, is that fact that the industrial revolution involved the emergence (or rapid expansion) of a class of educated people, thousands-now many millions-of people who spend entire careers exchanging ideas, solving work-related problems, generating new knowledge.

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Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w14133 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

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Previous	nber w14130 The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Investigation of the Settler Mortality Data /	nber w14131 Vengeance /	nber w14132 Climate Change and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century /	nber w14133 Ideas and Growth /	nber w14134 Crisis and Responses: the Federal Reserve and the Financial Crisis of 2007-2008 /	nber w14135 Models of Idea Flows /	nber w14136 Exclusionary Policies in Urban Development, How under-servicing of migrant households affects the growth and composition of Brazilian cities /	Next

June 2008.

What is it about modern capitalist economies that allows them, in contrast to all earlier societies, to generate sustained growth in productivity and living standards? It is widely agreed that the productivity growth of the industrialized economies is mainly an ongoing intellectual achievement, a sustained flow of new ideas. Are these ideas the achievements of a few geniuses, Newton, Beethoven, and a handful of others, viewed as external to the activities of ordinary people? Are they the product of a specialized research sector, engaged in the invention of patent-protected processes over which they have monopoly rights? Both images are based on important features of reality and both have inspired interesting growth theories, but neither seems to me central. What is central, I believe, is that fact that the industrial revolution involved the emergence (or rapid expansion) of a class of educated people, thousands-now many millions-of people who spend entire careers exchanging ideas, solving work-related problems, generating new knowledge.