Friday, September 28, 2007
Tweet[IWS] BLS Working Paper: R&D & PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE [28 September 2007]
IWS Documented News Service
_______________________________
Institute for Workplace Studies----------------- Professor Samuel B. Bacharach
School of Industrial & Labor Relations-------- Director, Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor---------------------- Stuart Basefsky
New York, NY 10016 -------------------------------Director, IWS News Bureau
________________________________________________________________________
BLS WORKING PAPERS
U.S. Department of Labor
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Working Paper 408
September 2007
Office of Productivity and Technology
R&D and Productivity Growth: A Review of the Literature
by Leo Sveikauskas
http://www.bls.gov/ore/pdf/ec070070.pdf
[full-text, 56 pages]
ABSTRACT:
This paper reviews the literature on R&D to provide guidelines for
recent efforts to include R&D in the national income accounts. The
main conclusions are:
1. Measures of R&D as an asset held by a particular owner must be
complemented by estimates of the spillover effect of R&D in order to
obtain a reliable measure of the overall effect of R&D on productivity
growth.
2. If research financed by the government and research financed by
business are both counted as investment, some double counting occurs
and growth accounting analysis overstates the role of research
relative to other factors.
3. The overall rate of return to R&D is very large, perhaps 25 percent
as a private return and a total of 65 percent for social returns.
However, these returns apply only to privately financed R&D in
industry. Returns to many forms of publicly financed R&D are near
zero.
4. Firm R&D should be allocated to the different industries in which a
firm produces, rather than all credited to the firm�s main industry.
An allocation procedure is proposed.
5. Much further work needs to be carried out to understand how R&D
conducted in the richest countries is transmitted to developing
countries. Detailed microeconomic data on firms or establishments in
developing nations will be necessary to understand the channels of
technology transfer more fully.
______________________________
This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.
Stuart Basefsky
Director, IWS News Bureau
Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell/ILR School
16 E. 34th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Telephone: (607) 255-2703
Fax: (607) 255-9641
E-mail: smb6@cornell.edu
****************************************
_______________________________
Institute for Workplace Studies----------------- Professor Samuel B. Bacharach
School of Industrial & Labor Relations-------- Director, Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor---------------------- Stuart Basefsky
New York, NY 10016 -------------------------------Director, IWS News Bureau
________________________________________________________________________
BLS WORKING PAPERS
U.S. Department of Labor
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Working Paper 408
September 2007
Office of Productivity and Technology
R&D and Productivity Growth: A Review of the Literature
by Leo Sveikauskas
http://www.bls.gov/ore/pdf/ec070070.pdf
[full-text, 56 pages]
ABSTRACT:
This paper reviews the literature on R&D to provide guidelines for
recent efforts to include R&D in the national income accounts. The
main conclusions are:
1. Measures of R&D as an asset held by a particular owner must be
complemented by estimates of the spillover effect of R&D in order to
obtain a reliable measure of the overall effect of R&D on productivity
growth.
2. If research financed by the government and research financed by
business are both counted as investment, some double counting occurs
and growth accounting analysis overstates the role of research
relative to other factors.
3. The overall rate of return to R&D is very large, perhaps 25 percent
as a private return and a total of 65 percent for social returns.
However, these returns apply only to privately financed R&D in
industry. Returns to many forms of publicly financed R&D are near
zero.
4. Firm R&D should be allocated to the different industries in which a
firm produces, rather than all credited to the firm�s main industry.
An allocation procedure is proposed.
5. Much further work needs to be carried out to understand how R&D
conducted in the richest countries is transmitted to developing
countries. Detailed microeconomic data on firms or establishments in
developing nations will be necessary to understand the channels of
technology transfer more fully.
______________________________
This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.
Stuart Basefsky
Director, IWS News Bureau
Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell/ILR School
16 E. 34th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Telephone: (607) 255-2703
Fax: (607) 255-9641
E-mail: smb6@cornell.edu
****************************************
# posted by SBasefsky : 3:52 PM
