The Relationship Between Scientific Production and Economic Growth Through R&D Investment: A Bibliometric Approach

Abstract

This quantitative bibliometric research measures the efficiency of investment in R&D for the 17 more relevant countries investing in R&D through a novel indicator based on the number of scientific articles (associated with stock markets), produced for every 1% of investment in R&D in terms of GDP. The study is justified by the need to deepen the relationship between investment in R&D and economic growth, and was conducted for developed and emerging countries separately, so that the understanding of which countries or regions’ investment in R&D and its consequent scientific production has the greatest impact over the size of their economies through innovation. Our findings indicate clearly that R&D investment strongly correlates to the economy’s size of the studied countries. In addition to finding our novel indicator statistically significant with respect to economic growth through a series of multiple linear regressions and proposing economic growth not statically, but as a dynamic cumulative effect over time, this becomes more relevant for emerging countries (represented in this study by China, Brazil, India, Russia and Turkey, or BRIC + Turkey) compared to developed ones, which decants into an opportunity for scholars and particularly governments to design or restructure their R&D policies towards innovation.

Keywords: Bibliometrics; Economic growth; Multiple linear regression; Research and development; Scientific production; SDG 8