استفاده از اختراعات ثبت شده و نشریات برای ارزیابی بهره وری "تحقیق و توسعه" ایالات متحده آمریکا

Even with the USA spending the largest amounts in R&D, its share in total patent grants worldwide has been declining. This decline is also evident in its share of world scientific publications. These developments have been termed by some as the “American Paradox”. Extant research on R&D efficiency and technological innovation capability has considered the USA as a homogeneous entity and has not focused at the sub-national level. This paper analyses the R&D efficiency of 50 US states and the District of Columbia. R&D efficiency is calculated as the ratio of patents granted and scientific publications to R&D expenditures. Only 14 states out of the 51 regions are found to exhibit positive changes in R&D efficiency between 2004 and 2008. Comparing this performance with that of the BRICS nations over the same period we find that Brazil, India, China and South Korea show significant improvements in R&D efficiency with India taking the lead. This research identifies the states in the US with the highest R&D efficiency and presents benchmarks which can be followed by policy interventions. The paper highlights the importance of conducting analyses of R&D efficiency using patents and publications at the sub-national level for informed policy making.

It is widely acknowledged that the growth of knowledge based economies is fuelled by research and development (R&D) and technological innovation. With large sums of money being invested in R&D by developed and developing countries, there is a growing interest in measuring scientific productivity and the efficiency of the R&D process. Initial comparative studies of scientific productivity of nations have focused mainly on developed countries [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9] and [10]. These studies have led to the identification of various declines and paradoxes. The European Paradox [11] and [12] highlights the excellence of the European Union in scientific publications which does not get translated to innovations and market success. Recently, attention has been drawn to the American Paradox which describes the falling world shares of scientific publications and patents of the USA despite world leading research investment [13], [14] and [15]. This is generally attributed to the increasing world shares of various Asian nations like China and South Korea [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21] and [22].

We analyzed the R&D efficiency of the 50 US states and the District of Columbia. R&D efficiency is conceptualized as the ratio of R&D outputs to inputs. The outputs taken are patents granted and scientific publications while the input to the R&D process is the total R&D performance of the state (in Million $). In order to impart a longitudinal perspective we compare the performance of the states for the years 2004 and 2008. We find that only 14 out 51 states and regions of the USA exhibit modest improvements in R&D efficiency. This is at variance with the results for the BRICS nations Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Korea for the same period. Except for Russia, the rest of the BRICS nations show robust increases in R&D efficiency thus validating the perception that a slow decline in R&D efficiency persists in the USA while BRICS nations continue to catch up.