Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?

2024

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AI-generated summary

1) One-sentence executive blurb (why it matters):
This paper demonstrates that research productivity is declining sharply across various industries, products, and firms, meaning that society must commit exponentially greater research effort simply to maintain constant economic growth.

2) 3 bullets: what's inside:
- Analyzes empirical evidence showing that research effort is rising substantially while research productivity falls across the US aggregate economy, Moore's Law, agricultural yields, and medical treatments.
- Examines firm-level datasets (Compustat and Census of Manufacturing) to confirm that the decline in research productivity is robust and widespread rather than driven by composition bias.
- Connects these findings to growth theory, suggesting that standard endogenous growth models must be adjusted to account for ideas getting harder to find over time.

3) Tags: economic growth, research productivity, innovation, R&D, productivity slowdown

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