Toward an assessment of impacts from US technology and innovation policies

Five important policy initiatives were promulgated in response to the slowdown in US productivity in the early 1970s, and then again in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These initiatives included the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, the Stevenson-Wydler Act of 1980, the Research and Experimentation Tax Credit Act of 1981, the Small Business Innovation and Development Act of 1982, and the National Cooperative Research Act of 1984. Scholars and policy-makers have long debated the direction and magnitude of impacts from these policies but empirical evidence remains modest, especially evidence of their aggregate effects. Our assessment of these policies is based on quantifying their collective impact on industrial investments in R&D in the post-productivity slowdown period. Our findings support the conclusion that the relative levels of industrial investments in R&D from 1980 onwards were significantly higher than before, ceteris paribus.