Research Productivity and Economic Growth: A Policy Lesson Learnt from Across the Globe

The relationship between research productivity and economic growth is the subject of information science which deals in this study to examine the impact of number of publications, research & development (R&D) expenditures and researchers involved in R&D activities on economic growth in the World’s largest regions for the period of 1980–2011. The study further expanded the research-growth nexus in the context of top twenty nations in terms of research output for the field of science and social sciences. The results confirmed the long-run relationship between research output and economic growth; while there is bidirectional causality between real economic growth and number of publication, in United States, Italy, Spain, Australia, India, Netherlands, Brazil, Switzerland, Taiwan, and Poland. Similarly, there is two-way causal relationship between real economic growth and R&D expenditures in USA, China, UK, Japan, India, Switzerland, Taiwan, Sweden, and Turkey. Finally, there is evident of feedback hypothesis between real economic growth and researchers involved in R&D activities in the USA, UK, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. The direction of causality is crucial because it has significantly policy implications for economic development.