R&D

Karthik Tadepalli on why adopt vs innovate is a false dichotomy, how Taiwan and Brazil did both, and why R&D should be a central part of the development playbook.

Evidence from India shows that R&D tax credit policies which targeted specific sectors generated meaningful welfare gains, particularly through improvements in product quality and product variety.

It is often argued that returns to R&D are low in developing countries, making imported technologies a better path to growth. Yet technologies designed for frontier nations may not fit local conditions, limiting their productivity gains. This column ...

Brazil’s R&D subsidy programme spurred long-term growth by helping financially constrained companies adopt foreign technologies and expand into high-tariff markets through import substitution.

The rich-world bias of agricultural innovation explains a large share of global disparities in technology adoption and agricultural productivity

The productivity of innovation could be enhanced by reducing distortions in the economy; increasing R&D expenditure is no guarantee of growth