摘要：Empirical research on the relation between R&D and economic growth has relied on cross-sectional or panel data. Most of the empirical research is based on the hypotheses generated by the predictions of the New Growth Theories (e.g, Romer, 1990) which focus on steady-state rate of economic growth. As such, cross-sectional tests are accurate only if the underlying growth rates are stationary (i.e., achieve steady-state) within country in the sample (Quah, 93; Jones, 95). But as Quah (93) and Jones (95) point out, the stationarity requirement is a very strong one and rarely borne out by the evidence. Moreover, unobserved country-specific factors always exist which make crosssectional tests less reliable. These difficulties points to the need for time-series studies which has often been neglected in this literature.
