Public support to innovation and imitation in a non-scale growth model

This paper studies technology policy within a version of Jones's [1995. R&D-based models of economic growth. Journal of Political Economy 103, 759-784] non-scale R&D-based growth framework that incorporates imitation of foreign techniques. In the model, imitation is the most important source of productivity growth at the beginning of the convergence process, whereas innovation dominates later on. In addition, the transitional dynamics of the model can account for well-known empirical regularities regarding the relationship between the level of economic development and public support to technology innovation and imitation. The paper shows as well that, even though policy in Jones-type non-scale models has no long-run growth effects, level effects can be substantial.