Trends and patterns in research and development expenditures in the United States
Abstract
This paper is a review of recent trends in United States expenditures on research and development (R&D). Real expenditures by both the government and the private sector increased rapidly between the mid-1970s and the mid-1980s, and have since leveled off. This is true of both overall expenditures and expenditures on basic research, as well as funding of academic research. Preliminary estimates indicate that about $170 billion was spent on R&D in the United States in 1995, with ≈60% of that funding coming from the private sector and about 35% from the federal government. In comparison to other countries, we have historically spent more on R&D relative to our economy than other advanced economies, but this advantage appears to be disappearing. If defense-related R&D is excluded, our expenditures relative to the size of the economy are considerably smaller than those of other similar economies.
Footnotes
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↵ * e-mail: jaffe{at}binah.cc.brandeis.edu.
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This paper was presented at a colloquium entitled “Science, Technology, and the Economy,” organized by Ariel Pakes and Kenneth L. Sokoloff, held October 20–22, 1995, at the National Academy of Sciences in Irvine, CA.
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Abbreviations: R&D, research and development; GDP, Gross Domestic Product; FFRDC, Federally Funded Research and Development Center; NSF, National Science Foundation.
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↵ † The preliminary 1995 data that I was able to get classify industry-operated FFRDCs (such as the Oak Ridge Lab in Tennessee) with federally funded industry research. Based on a break-out for this category in the 1993 Science Indicators, such facilities account for about $2 billion. Thus, a more realistic accounting would put federal labs at about $24 billion and federally funded industry research at about $20 billion.
- Copyright © 1996, The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
