IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v88y1998i2p298-302.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does Government R&D Policy Mainly Benefit Scientists and Engineers?

Author

Listed:
  • Goolsbee, Austan

Abstract

Conventional wisdom holds that the social rate of return to R&D significantly exceeds the private rate of return and, therefore, R&D should be subsidized. In the U.S., the government has directly funded a large fraction of total R&D spending. This paper shows that there is a serious problem with such government efforts to increase inventive activity. The majority of R&D spending is actually just salary payments for R&D workers. Their labor supply, however, is quite inelastic so when the government funds R&D, a significant fraction of the increased spending goes directly into higher wages. Using CPS data on wages of scientific personnel, this paper shows that government R&D spending raises wages significantly, particularly for scientists related to defense such as physicists and aeronautical engineers. Because of the higher wages, conventional estimates of the effectiveness of R&D policy may be 30 to 50% too high. The results also imply that by altering the wages of scientists and engineers even for firms not receiving federal support, government funding directly crowds out private inventive activity.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Goolsbee, Austan, 1998. "Does Government R&D Policy Mainly Benefit Scientists and Engineers?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 298-302, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:88:y:1998:i:2:p:298-302
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8282%28199805%2988%3A2%3C298%3ADGRPMB%3E2.0.CO%3B2-D&origin=repec
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James M. Poterba, 1983. "Tax Subsidies to Owner-occupied Housing: An Asset Market Approach," Working papers 339, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    2. Ryoo, J. & Rosen, S., 1992. "The Market for Engineers," University of Chicago - Economics Research Center 92-10, Chicago - Economics Research Center.
      • Ryoo, Jaewoo & Rosen, Sherwin, 1992. "The Market for Engineers," Working Papers 83, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Antonia Diaz & Maria Jose Luengo Prado, 2008. "On the User Cost and Homeownership," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(3), pages 584-613, July.
    2. Lennart Berg, 2002. "Prices on the second-hand market for Swedish family houses: correlation, causation and determinants," European Journal of Housing Policy, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 2(1), pages 1-24.
    3. Tommaso Ciarli & André Lorentz & Marco Valente & Maria Savona, 2019. "Structural changes and growth regimes," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 119-176, March.
    4. Todd Sinai & Nicholas S. Souleles, 2005. "Owner-Occupied Housing as a Hedge Against Rent Risk," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(2), pages 763-789.
    5. Edward L. Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko & Raven Saks, 2003. "Why is Manhattan So Expensive? Regulation and the Rise in House Prices," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2020, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    6. Joseph Gyourko & Todd Sinai, "undated". "The Spatial Distribution of Housing-Related Tax Benefits in the United States," Zell/Lurie Center Working Papers 399, Wharton School Samuel Zell and Robert Lurie Real Estate Center, University of Pennsylvania.
    7. Matteo Iacoviello, 2002. "House Prices and Business Cycles in Europe: a VAR Analysis," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 540, Boston College Department of Economics.
    8. André Lorentz & Tommaso Ciarli & Maria Savona & Marco Valente, 2016. "The effect of demand-driven structural transformations on growth and technological change," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 219-246, March.
    9. Nuno C. Martins & Ernesto Villanueva, 2003. "The impact of interest-rate subsidies on long-term household debt: Evidence from a large program," Economics Working Papers 713, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    10. Torfinn Harding & Haakon O. Aa. Solheim & Andreas Benedictow, 2004. "House ownership and taxes," Discussion Papers 395, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    11. Morris A. Davis, 2010. "housing and the business cycle," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics,, Palgrave Macmillan.
    12. Robert Topel & Sherwin Rosen, 1985. "A Time Series Model of Housing Investment in the U.S," UCLA Economics Working Papers 387, UCLA Department of Economics.
    13. Berkovec, James & Fullerton, Don, 1989. "The General Equilibrium Effects of Inflation on Housing Consumption and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(2), pages 277-282, May.
    14. Gábor Vadas, 2004. "Modelling Households’ Savings and Dwellings Investment – A Portfolio Choice Approach," International Real Estate Review, Global Social Science Institute, vol. 7(1), pages 31-55.
    15. John F. McDonald, 1985. "Expectations and Urban Housing Prices," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 22(6), pages 543-549, December.
    16. Daniel R. Feenberg & James M. Poterba, 1993. "Income Inequality and the Incomes of Very High-Income Taxpayers: Evidence from Tax Returns," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 7, pages 145-177, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Oikarinen, Elias, 2005. "Is Housing Overvalued in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area?," Discussion Papers 992, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    18. Rodriguez, J. & Barrios, J., 2004. "Politica fiscal de vivienda en España y forma de tenencia de la vivienda habitual: una valoracion empirica a nivel provincial," Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 4(2).
    19. Malte Krüger, 1998. "Exchange Rate Effects of Portfolio Shifts?," University of Western Ontario, Departmental Research Report Series 9807, University of Western Ontario, Department of Economics.
    20. James M. Poterba, 1990. "Taxation and Housing Markets: Preliminary Evidence on the Effects of Recent Tax Reforms," NBER Working Papers 3270, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
    • H56 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - National Security and War

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:88:y:1998:i:2:p:298-302. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.