IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/feddwp/96171.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Returns to Government R&D: Evidence from U.S. Appropriations Shocks

Author

Abstract

Based on a narrative classification of all significant postwar changes in R&D appropriations for five major federal agencies, we find that an increase in nondefense R&D appropriations leads to increases in various measures of innovative activity and higher business-sector productivity in the long run. We structurally estimate the production function elasticity of nondefense government R&D capital using the SP-IV methodology of Lewis and Mertens (2023) and obtain implied returns of 150 to 300 percent over the postwar period. The estimates indicate that government-funded R&D accounts for one quarter of business-sector TFP growth since WWII, and imply substantial underfunding of nondefense R&D.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew J. Fieldhouse & Karel Mertens, 2023. "The Returns to Government R&D: Evidence from U.S. Appropriations Shocks," Working Papers 2305, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, revised 21 Dec 2023.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:feddwp:96171
    DOI: 10.24149/wp2305r1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.dallasfed.org/-/media/documents/research/papers/2023/wp2305r1.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.dallasfed.org/-/media/documents/research/papers/2023/wp2305ar1.pdf
    File Function: Appendix
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.24149/wp2305r1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicholas Bloom & John Van Reenen & Heidi Williams, 2019. "A toolkit of policies to promote innovation," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 10.
    2. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 1989. "Does Monetary Policy Matter? A New Test in the Spirit of Friedman and Schwartz," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1989, Volume 4, pages 121-184, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Karel Mertens & José Luis Montiel Olea, 2018. "Marginal Tax Rates and Income: New Time Series Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 1803-1884.
    4. Andrew J Fieldhouse & Karel Mertens & Morten O Ravn, 2018. "The Macroeconomic Effects of Government Asset Purchases: Evidence from Postwar U.S. Housing Credit Policy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(3), pages 1503-1560.
    5. Kyle R. Myers & Lauren Lanahan, 2022. "Estimating Spillovers from Publicly Funded R&D: Evidence from the US Department of Energy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(7), pages 2393-2423, July.
    6. Karel Mertens & Morten O. Ravn, 2013. "The Dynamic Effects of Personal and Corporate Income Tax Changes in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1212-1247, June.
    7. Pedro R.D. Bom & Jenny E. Ligthart, 2014. "What Have We Learned From Three Decades Of Research On The Productivity Of Public Capital?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 889-916, December.
    8. John G. Fernald, 1999. "Roads to Prosperity? Assessing the Link between Public Capital and Productivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 619-638, June.
    9. Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), 2010. "Handbook of the Economics of Innovation," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    10. Michelle Alexopoulos, 2011. "Read All about It!! What Happens Following a Technology Shock?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1144-1179, June.
    11. Olivier Blanchard & Roberto Perotti, 2002. "An Empirical Characterization of the Dynamic Effects of Changes in Government Spending and Taxes on Output," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1329-1368.
    12. Valerie A. Ramey & Sarah Zubairy, 2018. "Government Spending Multipliers in Good Times and in Bad: Evidence from US Historical Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(2), pages 850-901.
    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. Ramey, V.A., 2016. "Macroeconomic Shocks and Their Propagation," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 71-162, Elsevier.
    2. Ashesh Rambachan & Neil Shephard, 2019. "Econometric analysis of potential outcomes time series: instruments, shocks, linearity and the causal response function," Papers 1903.01637, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2020.
    3. Valerie A. Ramey, 2019. "Ten Years after the Financial Crisis: What Have We Learned from the Renaissance in Fiscal Research?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(2), pages 89-114, Spring.
    4. Giovanni Angelini & Giovanni Caggiano & Efrem Castelnuovo & Luca Fanelli, 2023. "Are Fiscal Multipliers Estimated with Proxy‐SVARs Robust?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 85(1), pages 95-122, February.
    5. Anh D. M. Nguyen & Luisanna Onnis & Raffaele Rossi, 2021. "The Macroeconomic Effects of Income and Consumption Tax Changes," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 439-466, May.
    6. Rüth, Sebastian K. & Simon, Camilla, 2022. "How do income and the debt position of households propagate fiscal stimulus into consumption?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    7. Valerie A. Ramey, 2020. "The Macroeconomic Consequences of Infrastructure Investment," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Analysis and Infrastructure Investment, pages 219-268, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Choi, Sangyup & Shin, Junhyeok, 2023. "Household indebtedness and the macroeconomic effects of tax changes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 22-52.
    9. Alloza, Mario & Sanz, Carlos & Gonzalo, Jesús, 2019. "Dynamic Effects of Persistent Shocks," UC3M Working papers. Economics 29187, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    10. Rüth, Sebastian K. & Simon, Camilla, 2020. "How Do Income and the Debt Position of Households Propagate Public into Private Spending?," Working Papers 0676, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    11. Ms. Era Dabla-Norris & Frederico Lima, 2018. "Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Rate and Base Changes: Evidence from Fiscal Consolidations," IMF Working Papers 2018/220, International Monetary Fund.
    12. Eunseong Ma, 2019. "The Heterogeneous Responses of Consumption between Poor and Rich to Government Spending Shocks," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(7), pages 1999-2028, October.
    13. Dabla-Norris, Era & Lima, Frederico, 2023. "Macroeconomic effects of tax rate and base changes: Evidence from fiscal consolidations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    14. Alfred A. Haug & India Power, 2022. "Government Spending Multipliers in Times of Tight and Loose Monetary Policy in New Zealand," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 98(322), pages 249-270, September.
    15. Jasmien De Winne & Gert Peersman, 2016. "Macroeconomic Effects of Disruptions in Global Food Commodity Markets: Evidence for the United States," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 47(2 (Fall)), pages 183-286.
    16. Allan W. Gregory & James McNeil & Gregor W. Smith, 2022. "US Fiscal Policy Shocks: Proxy-SVAR Overidentification via GMM," Working Paper 1461, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    17. van der Wielen, Wouter, 2020. "The macroeconomic effects of tax changes: Evidence using real-time data for the European Union," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 302-321.
    18. Syed M. Hussain & Lin Liu, 2024. "Macroeconomic effects of discretionary tax changes in Canada: Evidence from a new narrative measure of tax shocks," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(1), pages 78-107, February.
    19. Kanazawa, Nobuyuki, 2021. "Public investment multipliers: Evidence from stock returns of the road pavement industry in Japan," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    20. ChaeWon Baek & Byoungchan Lee, 2022. "A Guide to Autoregressive Distributed Lag Models for Impulse Response Estimations," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(5), pages 1101-1122, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    government; R&D; productivity; growth; narrative analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • O38 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Government Policy
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fip:feddwp:96171. 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: Amy Chapman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbdaus.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.