On the Direction of Innovation
研究了竞争市场如何在不同研发领域间分配资源，发现由于动态拥挤外部性，市场会过度投入高回报问题，导致研发总价值仅等于将所有资源投入最不价值问题的价值，造成巨大损失。
How are resources allocated across different R&D areas (i.e., problems to be solved)? As a result of dynamic congestion externalities, the competitive market allocates excessive resources into those of high return, being those with higher private (and social) payoffs. Good problems are tackled too soon, and as a result the distribution of open research problems in the socially optimal solution stochastically dominates that of the competitive equilibrium. A severe form of rent dissipation occurs in the latter, where the total value of R&D activity equals the value of allocating all resources to the least valuable problem solved. Resulting losses can be substantial. \n \n