Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?
研究显示，尽管研究投入大幅增加，但研究生产率却在急剧下降，以摩尔定律为例，如今实现芯片密度翻倍所需的研究人员数量是1970年代初的18倍以上。
Long-run growth in many models is the product of two terms: the effective number of researchers and their research productivity. We present evidence from various industries, products, and firms showing that research effort is rising substantially while research productivity is declining sharply. A good example is Moore’s Law. The number of researchers required today to achieve the famous doubling of computer chip density is more than 18 times larger than the number required in the early 1970s. More generally, everywhere we look we find that ideas, and the exponential growth they imply, are getting harder to find.