Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bloom, Nicholas; Jones, Charles, I; Van Reenen, John; Webb, Michael
• 署名单位: Stanford University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Stanford University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20180338
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 1104-1144
• 关键词: research-and-development; endogenous growth; PRODUCTIVITY; INNOVATION; MARKET; spillovers; FIRMS; LIFE; PROTECTION; allocation

摘要

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.