Scientific Research and Growth Volatility

This article uncovers a strong link between scientific and engineering publications on the one hand, and growth volatility on the other: growth volatility is significantly lowered by a country’s ability to publish more scientific and engineering journal articles. This link is strongest among the high-income developed countries, where we find causality running from scientific research output to growth volatility. The evidence suggests that scientific research fuels technological progress and productivity growth, which support population increase, diversification, and stable economic growth. The key finding of this article is robust to various sensitivity checks and different estimators.