Quote:
Originally Posted by aceventura3
When we look at innovation in the private sector compared to government there is no comparison. For example Cisco Systems invested $1.4 billion in R&D in the fourth quarter of 2008, if we added all the R&D investment by US corporations and compared it to Government spending on R&D we would find government R&D spending small in comparison. Then if we looked at the return on the dollars invested the difference would be even bigger. In most cases government is not even interested in their R&D investment translating to something useful to society.
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There is no comparison unless we actually, well, do the comparison. R&D spending in the US was mostly done by federal government, and only went below 50% after the 80s, but it is still around 40%, give or take a couple of percentage points
Government spending on R & D does not compete with private spending on R & D. In fact, most research find them to be complimentary, with increases in govt. R & D spending leading to increases in private R & D spending and no evidence of crowding out. Which is intuitive even, given that such investment is done at different stages of research.
With regards to returns, of course the difference would be bigger. Which is why we need public funding in the first place. Basic research, vaccines, treatment for certain diseases and so on generally require a significant investment with high risk, but needs to be done anyways. Virtually every household item, electronic item, or medical treatment only exists today because of massive spending on R&D by the government, usually investing in non profitable things like the space race, military innovations, and so on.