Does Government R&D Policy Mainly Benefit Scientists and Engineers? / Austan Goolsbee.

By:

Goolsbee, Austan

Contributor(s):

National Bureau of Economic Research

Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w6532.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1998.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

Online resources:

Available additional physical forms:

Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers

Abstract: Conventional wisdom holds that the social rate of return to R&D significantly exceeds the private rate of return and, therefore, R&D should be subsidized. In the U.S., the government has directly funded a large fraction of total R&D spending. This paper shows that there is a serious problem with such government efforts to increase inventive activity. The majority of R&D spending is actually just salary payments for R&D workers. Their labor supply, however, is quite inelastic so when the government funds R&D, a significant fraction of the increased spending goes directly into higher wages. Using CPS data on wages of scientific personnel, this paper shows that government R&D spending raises wages significantly, particularly for scientists related to defense such as physicists and aeronautical engineers. Because of the higher wages, conventional estimates of the effectiveness of R&D policy may be 30 to 50% too high. The results also imply that by altering the wages of scientists and engineers even for firms not receiving federal support, government funding directly crowds out private inventive activity.

Tags from this library: No tags from this library for this title. Log in to add tags.

Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

Holdings
Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w6532 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

Total holds: 0

Collection: Colección NBER Close shelf browser (Hides shelf browser)

Previous	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	Next
Previous	nber w6529 On Theories Explaining the Success of the Gravity Equation /	nber w6530 Capital Flows to Emerging Markets: Liberalization, Overshooting, and Volatility /	nber w6531 What Determines Individual Trade Policy Preferences? /	nber w6532 Does Government R&D Policy Mainly Benefit Scientists and Engineers? /	nber w6533 Taxation and the Sources of Growth: Estimates from United States Multinational Corporations /	nber w6534 New Evidence on Pensions, Social Security, and the Timing of Retirement /	nber w6535 Diversity and Immigration /	Next

April 1998.

Conventional wisdom holds that the social rate of return to R&D significantly exceeds the private rate of return and, therefore, R&D should be subsidized. In the U.S., the government has directly funded a large fraction of total R&D spending. This paper shows that there is a serious problem with such government efforts to increase inventive activity. The majority of R&D spending is actually just salary payments for R&D workers. Their labor supply, however, is quite inelastic so when the government funds R&D, a significant fraction of the increased spending goes directly into higher wages. Using CPS data on wages of scientific personnel, this paper shows that government R&D spending raises wages significantly, particularly for scientists related to defense such as physicists and aeronautical engineers. Because of the higher wages, conventional estimates of the effectiveness of R&D policy may be 30 to 50% too high. The results also imply that by altering the wages of scientists and engineers even for firms not receiving federal support, government funding directly crowds out private inventive activity.