Title:
Research-Driven Productivity Growth Redux: Are Ideas Really Getting Harder to Find?
Abstract:
Recent studies using semi-endogenous growth models claim that the slowdown in U.S. productivity growth reflects a widespread and systematic decline in productivity of researchers—in other words, ideas are getting harder to find. In this article we challenge the underlying conceptual model, the corresponding measure of research productivity, and the apparent implication that declining productivity of researchers is clearly responsible for the observed slowdown in productivity growth. We present a range of evidence including measures for the national economy, agriculture, and wheat breeding, all of which negates the notion that research productivity is fading fast.