New Things Under the Sun

What’s the return on government funding for research? There are a few places in the academic literature you can look to for insight. Jones and Summers (2021) uses a hypothetical thought experiment to make the case that, on average, every dollar of R&D spent probably generates several dollars in benefits via its long-run impact on economic growth (see What are the returns to R&D? for more discussion). But that result applies only to R&D in general, government and non-government, bu...

Which kind of inventor (or scientist) is going to benefit more from artificial intelligence: novices or experts? In theory, it can go either way. This podcast is an audio read through of the (initial version of the) article Do prediction technologies help novices or experts more?, originally published on New Things Under the Sun. Articles Cited Nagaraj, Abhishek. 2021. The private impact of public data: Landsat satellite maps increased gold discoveries and encouraged entry. Management Scien...

Some inventions and discoveries make the inventive process itself more efficient. One such class of invention is the prediction technology. These can take a lot of forms. AI is one example of a technology that can help scientists and inventors make better predictions about what is worth trying as a candidate solution to a problem, but as we’ll see, there are many other kinds of prediction technology as well. This podcast is an audio read through of the (initial version of the) article Predic...

New Things Under the Sun is once again putting together a list of dissertation papers related to innovation. If you want your paper to be included, email the title, an abstract, and a link to the paper, to [email protected] by the end of November. In this post, coauthored with Caroline Fry, we look at the evidence on the effects of training programs for scientists in lower and middle income countries (LMICs). This podcast is an audio read through of the (initial version of the)...

The frequency of words associated with "progress" in English, German, and French books rose during the era of industrialization, but is down since the 1950s, at least according to google. Is this a signal of declining cultural interest in progress, as a concept? Or just an artifact of how google constructed its text corpus? This podcast is an audio read through of the (initial version of the) article The Decline in Writing About Progress, originally published on New Things Under the Sun.