Domain: Research, Innovation, and Economic Growth
How R&D investment, patent activity, and scientific output drive technological change, productivity growth, and competitiveness
Temporal scope: 1996-present | Population: Countries worldwide
Key Findings
- R&D expenditure as share of GDP is positively associated with TFP growth with estimated social returns 2-4 times larger than private returns to R&D investment (positive, strong)
- Patent applications per capita are positively associated with GDP per capita growth but with heterogeneous effects across technology sectors and country income levels (conditional, moderate)
- Researcher density per million population is strongly positively correlated with scientific publication output per capita across 140 countries (positive, strong)
- High-technology export share is positively associated with economic complexity and long-run growth in Schumpeterian growth models with empirical validation (positive, moderate)