Abstract
With the Russian success in launching in 1957 the Sputnik space satellite, which led — as mentioned in the previous chapter — to far-reaching changes in educational and technology-stimulating policies, a strong impetus was given to the development of integrated science policies at national level in a number of the major industrialised countries. “Science policy” has involved the collaboration of government departments and representatives of the academic and research communities of science, including government-sponsored research establishments, in determining the allocation among fields and research organisations of the funds made available by governments to support science.
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Notes
The remainder of this chapter draws substantially on a paper by the present writer for an enquiry in the United States by the National Academy of Sciences, Basic Research and National Goals, Report to the Committee on Science and Astronautics, House of Representatives, United States Congress ( Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1965 ).
On this point see the comment by Thomas S. Kuhn on Irving H. Siegel, “Scientific Discovery and the Rate of Invention”, in Richard R. Nelson (ed.), The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity: Economic and Social Factors ( Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962 ), pp. 450–57.
This argument is forcefully developed in Fritz Machlup, Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962), although it is questionable how far Professor Machlup’s identification of basic research with university teaching, and the production of graduate students, is a valid approximation.
Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (London: Macmillan, 1899 ). It should be emphasised that in this context “leisure” does not mean idleness or frivolous activity. It simply means time free from the uninteresting tasks of producing a subsistence and available for the pursuit of non-material interests.
The following summary is only a broad sketch. For a more extensive survey, see Moses Abramovitz, “Economic Growth in the United States”, American Economic Review, New York, September 1962, pp. 762–82.
Edward F. Denison, The Sources of Economic Growth in the United States and the Alternatives Before Us ( New York: Committee for Economic Development, 1962 ).
For papers in this field see B. R. Williams (ed.), Science and Technology in Economic Growth (New York and Toronto: Halstead Press, for the International Economic Association, 1973; and London: Macmillan, 1973 ).
For more elaborate theoretical analyses of the economics of research, see: Nelson, “The Simple Economics of Basic Scientific Research”, Journal of Political Economy, Chicago, June 1959, pp. 297–309; Kenneth J. Arrow, “Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources to Invention”, in Nelson, op. cit., pp. 609–26;
Dan Usher, “The Welfare Economics of Invention”, Economica, London, August 1964, pp. 279–87.
An outstanding example of the type of calculation required is in Zvi Griliches, “Research Costs and Social Returns: Hybrid Corn and Related Innovations”, Journal of Political Economy., October 1958, pp. 419–43, where there is an estimate of the realised social return on public and private funds invested in hybrid corn research. Dr. Griliches estimated that at least 700 per cent a year was being earned, as of 1955, on the average dollar invested in hybrid corn research (p. 419). He was careful to point out, however, that this was a successful research venture and that the finding does not mean that any amount of research is bound to be worthwhile. One of the limitations of economic research in this area is that it has tended to focus on cases of successful scientific research.
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© 1975 Harry G. Johnson and the Trade Policy Research Centre
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Johnson, H.G. (1975). Economic Problems of Science Policy. In: Technology and Economic Interdependence. Trade Policy Research Centre. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15611-5_2
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