The Role of R&D Factors in Economic Growth

Lorenz Ekerdt

Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies

Abstract: This paper studies factor usage in the R&D sector. I show that the usage of non-labor inputs in R&D is significant, and that their usage has grown much more rapidly than the R&D workforce. Using a standard growth decomposition applied to the aggregate idea production function, I estimate that at least 77% of idea growth since the early 1960s can be attributed to the growth of non-labor inputs in R&D. I demonstrate that a similar pattern would hold on the balanced growth path of a standard semi-endogenous growth model, and thus that the decomposition is not simply a by-product of rising research intensity. I then show that combining long-running differences in factor growth rates with non-unitary elasticities of substitution in idea production leads to a slowdown in idea growth whenever labor and capital are complementary. I conclude by estimating this elasticity of substitution and demonstrate that the results favor complimentarities.

Date: 2024-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www2.census.gov/library/working-papers/2024/adrm/ces/CES-WP-24-69.pdf First version, 2024 (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:cen:wpaper:24-69

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Dawn Anderson ().