I agree you can probably beat this average by aiming specifically at R&D for boosting economic growth.
I’d be surprised if you could spend $100s millions per year and consistently beat the average by a large amount (>5X) though:
The $2 trillion number also excludes plenty of TFP-increasing research work done by firms that don’t report R&D like Walmart and many services firms.
The broad areas where this feels most plausible to me (R&D in computing or fundamental bio-tech) are also the areas that have the biggest potential downsides risks.
To have impact you need to fund projects that wouldn’t otherwise receive funding
Governments and other funders want to fund things that increase growth. I’m sceptical you can be (e.g.) 10X as good as these funders at identifying bets ex ante.
Another relevant point is that some interventions increase R&D inputs in a non-targeted, or weakly targeted, way. E.g. high-skill immigration to the US or increasing government funding for broad R&D pots. The ‘average R&D’ number seems particularly useful for these interventions.
Sorry for the slow reply!
I agree you can probably beat this average by aiming specifically at R&D for boosting economic growth.
I’d be surprised if you could spend $100s millions per year and consistently beat the average by a large amount (>5X) though:
The $2 trillion number also excludes plenty of TFP-increasing research work done by firms that don’t report R&D like Walmart and many services firms.
The broad areas where this feels most plausible to me (R&D in computing or fundamental bio-tech) are also the areas that have the biggest potential downsides risks.
To have impact you need to fund projects that wouldn’t otherwise receive funding
Governments and other funders want to fund things that increase growth. I’m sceptical you can be (e.g.) 10X as good as these funders at identifying bets ex ante.
Another relevant point is that some interventions increase R&D inputs in a non-targeted, or weakly targeted, way. E.g. high-skill immigration to the US or increasing government funding for broad R&D pots. The ‘average R&D’ number seems particularly useful for these interventions.