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
BEA-Table7.1.xls application/vnd.ms-excel 24 KB 10/21/2019 01:32:PM
HistStatMillennialBc814-857.xls application/vnd.ms-excel 31 KB 10/21/2019 01:32:PM
MeanIncomebyEducation-CPS.xls application/vnd.ms-excel 104 KB 10/21/2019 01:32:PM
NominalGDPData.mat application/x-matlab-data 1.1 KB 10/21/2019 01:32:PM
RNDSalaries.m text/x-matlab 2.2 KB 10/21/2019 01:32:PM
RNDSalaries.mat application/x-matlab-data 905 bytes 10/21/2019 01:32:PM
WageEducation.m text/x-matlab 2 KB 10/21/2019 01:32:PM
WageEducationPlus1.m text/x-matlab 1.2 KB 10/21/2019 01:32:PM
WageNominalGDP.m text/x-matlab 4.1 KB 10/21/2019 01:32:PM
WageSci.xls application/vnd.ms-excel 43.5 KB 10/21/2019 01:32:PM

Citation: 

Bloom, Nicholas, Jones, Charles I., Van Reenen, John, and Webb, Michael. Data and Code for: Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?: WageSci. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2020. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2020-03-30. https://doi.org/10.3886/E111743V2-84580

To view the citation for the overall project, see http://doi.org/10.3886/E111743V2.

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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