Science, technology, and economic growth

Systematic study of technology change by economists and other social scientists began largely during the 1950s, emerging out of a concern with improving our quantitative knowledge of the sources of economic growth. The early work was directed at identifying the importance of different factors in generating growth and relied on highly aggregated data. However, the finding that increases in the stocks of conventional factors of production (capital and labor) accounted for only a modest share of economic growth stimulated more detailed research on the processes underlying technological progress, and led to major advances in conceptualization, data collection, and measurement. It also focused attention on theoretical research, which was clarifying why market mechanisms were not as well suited to allocate resources for the production and transmission of knowledge as they were for more traditional goods and services. The intellectual impetus that these studies provided contributed to an increased appreciation by policymakers of the economic significance of science and technology, and a more intensive investigation of its role in phenomena as diverse as: the slowdown of productivity advance in the West, the extreme variation in rates of growth across the world, and the increased costs of health care.

In organizing the National Academy of Sciences colloquium on “Science, Technology, and the Economy,” we sought to showcase the broad range of research programs now being conducted in the general area of the economics of technology, as well as to bring together a group of scholars who would benefit from dialogues with others whose subjects of specialization were somewhat different from their own. While the majority of participants were economists, there was also representation from a number of other disciplines, including political science, medicine, history, law, sociology, physics, and operations research. The papers presented at this colloquium have been shortened and revised for publication …