A Calculation of the Social Returns to Innovation,This chapter is a preliminary draft unless otherwise noted. It may not have been subjected to the formal review process of the NBER. This page will be updated as the chapter is revised.
Chapter in forthcoming NBER book Innovation and Public Policy, Austan Goolsbee and Benjamin Jones, editors This paper estimates the social returns to investments in innovation. The disparate spillovers associated with innovation, including imitation, business stealing, and intertemporal spillovers, have made calculations of the social returns difficult. Here we provide an economy-wide calculation that nets out the many spillover margins. We further assess the role of capital investment, diffusion delays, learning-by-doing, productivity mismeasurement, health outcomes, and international spillovers in assessing the average social returns. Overall, our estimates suggest that the social returns are very large. Even under conservative assumptions, innovation efforts produce social benefits that are many multiples of the investment costs. This paper is available as PDF (490 K) or via email
Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX This chapter first appeared as NBER working paper w27863, A Calculation of the Social Returns to Innovation, Benjamin F. Jones, Lawrence H. Summers |
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