Growth and public support to innovation and imitation

Resumen

The paper studies technology policy within a version of Jones's (1995) non-scale R&D-based growth framework that incorporates imitation of foreign techniques. The transitional dynamics of the model can account for some well-known empirical regularities regarding the relationship between the level of economic development and public support to technology innovation and imitation. The paper also documents that mos predictions of the model are consistent with the empirical evidence. Overall, these results suggest that foreign techniques can be the main driving force behind imitation policy. The paper shows as well that, even though policy in Jones-type non-scale models has no long-run growth effects, level effects can be substantial.