前回エントリの注で転換的技術の成長が加速された例として米ソの宇宙開発競争を挙げたが、まさにその点を扱った表題のNBER論文が上がっている（ungated版へのリンクがある著者の一人のページ）。原題は「Moonshot: Public R&D and Growth」で、著者はShawn Kantor（フロリダ州立大）、Alexander T. Whalley（カルガリー大）。
以下はその要旨。
We estimate the long-term effect of public R&D on growth in manufacturing by analyzing new data from the Cold War era Space Race. We develop a novel empirical strategy that leverages US-Soviet rivalry in space technology to isolate windfall R&D spending. Our results demonstrate that public R&D conducted by NASA contractors increased manufacturing value added, employment, and capital accumulation in space related sectors. While migration responses were important, they were not sufficient to generate a wedge between local and national effects. The iconic Moonshot R&D program had meaningful economic effects for both the local and national space related sectors. Yet the magnitudes of the estimated effects seem to align with those of other non-R&D types of government expenditures.
（拙訳）
我々は、冷戦期の宇宙開発競争の新たなデータを分析して、公共の研究開発が製造業の成長に与える長期的な影響を推計した。我々は、宇宙技術における米ソ競争を利用して、研究開発支出の棚ぼた的要素を分離する新たな実証戦略を構築した。我々の結果が示すところによれば、NASAが実施した公共の研究開発は、宇宙関連部門の製造業の付加価値、雇用、および資本蓄積を増大させた。支出増に対応して人が移住したことは重要ではあるが、地域と全国への影響の差を生み出すほどではなかった*1。象徴的な月ロケット打ち上げ研究開発計画は、地域的と全国的の両方の宇宙関連部門に有意な経済効果をもたらした。ただ、推計された効果の規模は、他の非研究開発型の政府支出と同様のように思われる*2。
*1:本文の導入部では「Our estimated multiplier effects based on manufacturing value added reflect local rather than national effects. Local estimates would overstate national effects if workers migrated from other locations toward places that experienced windfall NASA activity. ... The results reveal that inventors working in space industries did in fact migrate toward these space locations, and the results are robust to typical county-to-county migration patterns and state tax policies. While these migration responses would imply that the national effects of the space program would be smaller than the localized effects, other positive spatial spillovers – i.e., demand and technology being two notable examples – can counteract them. We develop a spatial framework based on Donaldson and Hornbeck (2016) that allows for workers and firms to respond to local shocks through adjustments in migration, trade, and production. Our framework accounts for multiple sources of spatial spillovers from NASA R&D to obtain the net effect of non-local NASA activity. Applying this theoretical framework, our fifth set of results shows that in the medium-term and long-term, overall market effects were small enough not to amplify or attenuate the positive local effects from Space Race activity. The implication of these findings is that the local and national fiscal multipliers associated with NASA contractor spending were largely the same.」と記述している（Donaldson and Hornbeck (2016)はこれ［WP］）。
*2:本文の導入部では「Modern commentators contend that Space Race research had particularly high returns because NASA’s organization was highly effective at research coordination and the intrinsic geopolitical motivation encouraged scientists to exert high levels of effort (Mazzucato 2021). Those advocating for significant government spending to jump-start innovation and economic growth often call for a new “Sputnik Moment,” harkening back to a time when the US devoted significant treasure racing the Soviet Union to the Moon (Gruber and Johnson 2019). Yet, surveys of space scientists shortly after the Space Race suggest that NASA’s role in technological development was mostly incremental (Robbins, Kelly and Elliot 1972) and some economists since Fogel (1966) – who was writing in real-time during the Space Race – have expressed skepticism that commercially relevant technology would be developed from mission-oriented R&D. While the intellectual roots of the economics of innovation draw on the proverbial “moonshot” (Nelson 1959), a measure of the effects of such large-scale public expenditures still remains elusive (Bloom, Van Reenen, and Williams 2019). While our estimates imply iconic Moonshot R&D had first-order effects on economic growth in space sectors, given that the magnitude of the effect lines up with typical government spending fiscal multipliers indicates that the Moonshot’s role in broad based productivity growth was more limited.」と記述している。
