On the cyclicality of research and development

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Barlevy, Gadi
• 署名单位: Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Chicago
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.97.4.1131
• 发表日期: 2007
• 页码: 1131-1164
• 关键词: productivity growth; business cycles; destruction

摘要

Economists have recently argued recessions play a useful role in fostering growth. Yet a major source of growth, R&D, is procyclical. This paper argues one reason for procyclical R&D is a dynamic externality inherent in R&D that makes entrepreneurs short-sighted and concentrate their innovation in booms, even when it is optimal to concentrate it in recessions. Additional forces may imply that procyclical R&D is desirable, but equilibrium R&D is likely to be too procyclical, and,macroeconomic shocks are likely to have overly persistent effects on output and make growth more costly than in the absence of such shocks.