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Growth in States' R&D Spending Outpaced Others Over Last 30 Years
Adjusted for inflation, state R&D expenditures grew at an average annual rate of 3.3 percent between 1965 and 1995, compared with the nationwide R&D spending growth of 2.5 percent per year for the same period, according to What is the State Government Role in the R&D Enterprise? This report was issued by the Research and Development Statistics Program of the National Science Foundation's Division of Science Resource Studies.
Several R&D indicators included in the report, however, indicate that while total state R&D spending has grown, the states' share of US R&D spending and US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has declined.
The report is based on data collected by NSF or through NSF-sponsored research on periodic surveys of state R&D expenditures and annual academic R&D surveys.
The report states that while total state R&D expenditures increased by $240 million (constant 1992 dollars) between 1987 and 1995, state R&D as a percentage of US R&D activity in 1995 remained at the 1987 level of 1.37 percent.
While never a large portion of the US GDP, state R&D as a percentage of US GDP for 1995 actually declined slightly from the 1987 share of 0.037 percent to 0.035 percent. In 1965, the figure was 0.031 percent.
Copies of What is the State Government Role in the R&D Enterprise? (NSF report number 99-348) may be downloaded from the NSF website: http://www.nsf.gov