America, Jump-started: World War II R&D and the Takeoff of the U.S. Innovation System / Daniel P. Gross, Bhaven N. Sampat.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gross, Daniel P.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Sampat, Bhaven N.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w27375.

NBER working paper series no. w27375

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2020.

Summary:

During World War II, the U.S. government's Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) undertook one of the largest public investments in applied R&D in U.S. history, entering into thousands of contracts with firms and universities to perform research essential to the war effort. Using data on all OSRD-funded invention, we show that this shock had a formative impact on the U.S. innovation system, catalyzing technology clusters around the country with accompanying increases in high-tech entrepreneurship and employment. These effects continue growing to at least 1970 and appear to be attributable to agglomeration externalities, rather than sustained public R&D investment, which led to widening disparities in inventive output across the country. In the aggregate, wartime R&D permanently changed the trajectory of U.S. innovation in the direction of funded technologies, including electronics and communications.

Notes:

Print version record

June 2020.