https://www.jstor.org/stable/2729500

Summary:

This paper quantifies the relationship between science and economic growth by considering the payoff and timing of their effects. It combines two lines of research: one shows that businesses benefit from sharing knowledge, and the other suggests that these knowledge spillovers are the driving force behind economic growth and are internally generated.

In the context of the new growth economics, the focus is often on how a company's research and development activities contribute to these knowledge spillovers, both as creators and recipients. However, the paper argues that research in the nonprofit sector also generates spillovers and that these spillovers are influenced by profit-seeking behavior.

Economists have explored how a reward system based on priority (e.g., patents) provides incentives for scientists to act in ways that benefit society. This system encourages the production and sharing of knowledge, addressing the challenge of making public goods like knowledge excludable, which is necessary for economic growth.

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Lecture notes:

Science is a public good, Stephan studies science as a market or marketised interactions. In terms of science being a public good, the marketised (quantified) view of science as a public good are:

• Scientists seek rewards
• Scientists seek to be the first
• Informal exchange of favours exist (citations of preferred authors based on relationships)

These are all incentives for creating a public good.