National policies for technical change: Where are the increasing returns to economic research?

摘要

Improvements over the past 30 years in statistical data, analysis, and related theory have strength- ened the basis for science and technology policy by confirming the importance of technical change in national economic performance. But two important features of scientific and technological activities in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries are still not ad- dressed adequately in mainstream economics: (i) the justify- cation of public funding for basic research and (ii) persistent international differences in investment in research and de- velopment and related activities.