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3 IMPACTS ON THE U.S. ECONOMY AND QUALITY OF LIFE
Pages 19-24

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From page 19...
... These have been the principal avenues for measuring economic benefits of research FEDERAL RESEARCH AND PRODUCTIVITY From the 1950s to the 1970s, many studies examined the broad outcomes of federal R and D, but fewer studies have occurred in recent decades, said Carol Corrado, Senior Advisor and Research Director in Economics at the Conference Board. She presented recent results from investigations of the relationship between R and D and productivity, taking mostly a "30,000-foot perspective." She also emphasized a key prospective change in the U.S.
From page 20...
... Finally, she observed that innovation is "more than science." Studies suggest that firms innovate based on intangibles such as product design, new business processes, and staff knowledge building, not just new research results. An estimate for 2001 put R and D's share of
From page 21...
... Examples include a better trained workforce that generates higher productivity, solutions to industrial problems, new infrastructure, or hubs for innovation. Even if these spillover benefits turn out to be smaller than the direct benefits, "they are important and are increasingly driving the discussion about the cost and benefits of research." One way to estimate the economic benefits of research is through job creation, but Weinberg noted that "this poses deep fundamental and practical problems." For example, if a job pays $50,000 a year, the value of the job to a person is really that amount minus what a jobholder would have been earning on another job.
From page 22...
... For the future, it is important to think about productivity spillovers not simply in terms of job creation but by doing studies that "unpack the mechanisms by which science and research impact economic outcomes." BEYOND CITATIONS AND PATENT REFERENCE COUNTS A common way to measure knowledge flows among universities, government laboratories, and firms is through citations in patents to patent references (PR) assigned to universities, federal laboratories, or research institutes and citations to non-patent references (NPR)
From page 23...
... Patent and Trademark Office make NPR data more readily available to scholars. Other external data could be used to measure knowledge flows, such as NSF's recently expanded Business R and D and Innovation Survey (BRDIS)
From page 24...
... The problem from an economic analysis perspective, Hall said, is that "in the United States, the value of firms even when the market is down is substantially higher than the value of their tangible capital assets." When one looks for what explains the difference, "capitalized R and D is the first thing" one sees. In response to a question about how research funders can generate more positive spillover effects from research, Weinberg pointed out that research funding is more likely to have positive effects in nearby location than distant locations.


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