Should the Government Subsidize Innovation or Automation?

Chu, Angus C. and Cozzi, Guido and Furukawa, Yuichi and Liao, Chih-Hsing (2018): Should the Government Subsidize Innovation or Automation?

Abstract

This study introduces automation into a Schumpeterian model to explore the different effects of R&D and automation subsidies. R&D subsidy increases innovation and decreases the share of automated industries with an overall inverted-U effect on economic growth. Automation subsidy decreases innovation and increases the share of automated industries also with an inverted-U effect on growth. Calibrating the model to US data, we find that the current level of R&D (automation) subsidy is above (below) the growth-maximizing level. Simulating transition dynamics, we find that changing R&D (automation) subsidy to its growth-maximizing level causes a welfare gain of 3.8% increase in consumption.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: automation, innovation, economic growth
• Subjects: O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O3 - Innovation ; Research and Development ; Technological Change ; Intellectual Property Rights; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O4 - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity

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