Data and Code for: Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Nicholas Bloom, Stanford University; Charles I. Jones, Stanford University; John Van Reenen, MIT; Michael Webb, Stanford University

Version:  View help for Version V2

Name File Type Size Last Modified
Compustat-WRDS-2016-06-13.csv text/csv 63.5 MB 10/21/2019 01:32:PM
Compustat-WRDS-2016-06-13.xlsx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet 41 MB 10/21/2019 01:32:PM
Compustat-WRDS-BusinessSegment-2018-07-16-Examples.xlsx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet 385.8 KB 10/21/2019 01:32:PM
Compustat-WRDS-BusinessSegment-2018-07-16.xlsx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet 44.4 MB 10/21/2019 01:32:PM
CompustatData.mat application/x-matlab-data 11.3 MB 10/21/2019 01:32:PM
CompustatIdeaPF.m text/x-matlab 20.8 KB 10/21/2019 01:32:PM
CompustatRead.m text/x-matlab 5.5 KB 10/21/2019 01:32:PM
GDPDeflator.m text/x-matlab 1.6 KB 10/21/2019 01:32:PM
GDPDeflator.mat application/x-matlab-data 947 bytes 10/21/2019 01:32:PM
MasterCompustat.m text/x-matlab 4 KB 10/21/2019 01:32:PM

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary Long-run growth in many models is the product of two terms: the effective number of researchers and their research productivity. We present evidence from various industries, products, and firms showing that research effort is rising substantially while research productivity is declining sharply. A good example is Moore's Law. The number of researchers required today to achieve the famous doubling of computer chip density is more than 18 times larger than the number required in the early 1970s. More generally, everywhere we look we find that ideas --- and the exponential growth they imply --- are getting harder to find.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms Economic growth; productivity; R&D
JEL Classification:  View help for JEL Classification
      O30 Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights: General
      O40 Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity: General


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Published Versions

V2 [2020-03-30]

V1 [2019-09-09]

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