As noted by a 2020 paper titled "Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?", productivity growth has remained mostly constant while the number of researchers has skyrocketed. Hence, productivity of "science" appears to be declining. Naturally this is concerning as innovation is the backbone of economic growth.
Most commentators blamed either scientific institutions or literature backlog for this result. Perhaps the backload knowledge necessary to perform valuable research has grown so large no single human can make impactful innovations. Or maybe bureacracy and paperwork is killing good ideas before they reach the economy.
This article claims that rather market inefficiency is to blame. That is, valuable innovations are struggling to be adopted by existing corporations. Karthik Tadepalli notes,
- Breakthrough patents — those which change the basis of later research — have increased
- R & D seems to produce more breakthrough patents per dollar than previously.
- Less productive firms seem to have gained market share (possibly by abusing incumbent advantages) over newer more productive firms.
Thoughts? I personally find (3) highly concerning and I intend to skim the cited papers eventually.
Posted by DudleyFluffles