“Ideas” driven growth: the OECD evidence

This paper estimates the parameters of the ideas production function crucial to recent ideas-driven growth models. Using U. S. patents granted to residents in OECD countries to generate the stock of commercially used ideas, we provide evidence for two main findings. First, at the level of the production of ideas, we find evidence of increasing returns to scale in the stock of ideas and number of researchers, but marginal decreasing returns in each one of these factors. Second, we provide evidence of the association between ideas growth and economic growth for the OECD as a whole in the long run.JEL Classification: 031, 040The author would like to thank the helpful comments made by two anonymous referees, and by the editor, of the PEJ. The helpful discussions with Professor Mário Rui Silva are grateful acknowledged, too.