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How much countries spend in R&D

uis.unesco.org

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Re: How much countries spend in R&D

#41

Post by yostrovs »

iagovar wrote: post #35
throwaway_tvs wrote: post #30

I really admire Israel on the intellectual front. This is a nation that starts using an obscure liturgical language (Hebrew) at the turn of the 19th century, and today has Silicon Wadi which is second only to SV, the highest proportion of PhDs in the population, and a couple Nobels, Fields, Turing and Wolf prizes! I wonder if there are some aspects of Jewish culture than can be incorporated the world over. India on t…

But why does this happen in Israel? They don't benefit from the huge capital flows and single market of the US

When a B is considered a poor grade by your mother and you are simply expected to be on top of your class, it does wonders. Genetics probably play a roll too, but that discussion is not allowed here.

Re: How much countries spend in R&D

#42

Post by voltooid »

throwaway_tvs wrote: post #33
voltooid wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, it seems to me that India (and other countries in the region and maybe elsewhere) has a problem with strictly hierarchical structure, issues with accessibility and availability of resources. There is no investment in improving training for teachers. Typically, people that don't find jobs anywhere else take up teaching. Teaching is also typically a high-stress, low-paid job. It seems to have not a lot to…

You might be right to the first order about language, but having a 'colonial' system is very insidious IMO. First it means that a large fraction of the population is implicitly denied resources to develop their abilities. Second it means that people who do make it through the system (as it is) have no real incentives to stay back, neither cultural, nor fiscal, nor institutional. Personally, none of the people I studi…

What do you mean by a colonial system? edited to add: I ask the question because I genuinely don't understand what you mean by it in this context. It seems to me that it might mean some sort of system that the British introduced in India that was then adopted by the Indians after Independence. But I could be missing the nuances in your argument.

Re: How much countries spend in R&D

#44

Post by jasonvorhe »

siruncledrew wrote: post #2

I was excited to see such a fresh UI from the UNESCO site when the page first loaded, then as I started reading I realized the right half of every sentence is cut off in Safari on iPhone 6/7/8.

I'm having the same issues with Chrome on Android. Too bad. No TLS with LetsEncrypt being around is pretty shameful as well.

Re: How much countries spend in R&D

#45

Post by mathnmusic »

early wrote: post #3

% of GDP can be a bit misleading as rich countries easy fall to the left of the graph. I would rather see $ spent per person

I'd rather see purchasing-power adjusted spend per person. Something better than the big mac index.

Would still need to adjust for poverty.

Re: How much countries spend in R&D

#46

Post by carlmr »

voltooid wrote: post #31
throwaway_tvs wrote: post #28

India's is a sad state. It is partly to do with the fact that the nation maintains (rather proudly IMO) the colonial structure of being a mere 'training ground' for Engineers and Scientists before they move to the US/UK/rem. Anglo-Saxon nations. K Vijayaraghavan, the DBT secretary, and a NAS fellow, has written a piece on the matter. https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/india-must-shed-inte...

Respectfully, it seems to me that India (and other countries in the region and maybe elsewhere) has a problem with strictly hierarchical structure, issues with accessibility and availability of resources. There is no investment in improving training for teachers. Typically, people that don't find jobs anywhere else take up teaching. Teaching is also typically a high-stress, low-paid job. It seems to have not a lot to…

>How about looking into what else their education system does that is possibly absent in the Indian system?

No rote memorization for starters. I have found that if you want problem solvers, it's usually not people from rote memorization cultures. Hierarchical thinking is the next problem. If you want to disrupt something, you have to be a little bit of a rebel.

Re: How much countries spend in R&D

#47

Post by tanilama »

So by absolute spending, there are basically 3 centers:

1. USA 2. East Asia 3. West Europe

East Asia combined, their spending is bigger than USA and EU.

What will be more interesting is to break down those spending on what particular field they are spent on, but I guess that data is hard to collect.

Overall, in line with my every day feeling, but kinda unimpressed as well. South Korea is an outlier here, their spending in R&D is absolutely massive in both relative/absolute terms.

Re: How much countries spend in R&D

#48

Post by JumpCrisscross »

philipps wrote: post #32
baddox wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even your example doesn’t seem that pathological if you assume that the individuals are actually pursuing their preferences rather than deliberately trying to inflate their group GDP.

Which is why a more exaggerated comparison would be this: a person who walks home after finishing work to cook dinner with the family using vegetables grown in the backyard vs a person who eats out in a bar, drives home drunk, gets into an accident, ends up in hospital, and creates a huge increase in GDP. The example downplays the positive impact of the increase in GDP (eg the drunk driver creates jobs for car manufa…

> and creates a huge increase in GDP

That evening, sure. In the long run, their productivity is likely diminished. You see a similar binge-and-reckoning cycle in macroéconomies, the difference being practically nobody is rewarded for higher GDP. Governments are rewarded for having larger tax bases.

Re: How much countries spend in R&D

#49

Post by dewey »

iagovar wrote: post #35
throwaway_tvs wrote: post #30

I really admire Israel on the intellectual front. This is a nation that starts using an obscure liturgical language (Hebrew) at the turn of the 19th century, and today has Silicon Wadi which is second only to SV, the highest proportion of PhDs in the population, and a couple Nobels, Fields, Turing and Wolf prizes! I wonder if there are some aspects of Jewish culture than can be incorporated the world over. India on t…

But why does this happen in Israel? They don't benefit from the huge capital flows and single market of the US

I could be wrong but from what I read a while ago it's that there's not much traditional resources to export (Farming, Mining,..) and instead there's a focus on R&D and exporting technology. There's probably also a very high amount of R&D in the military sector that's subsidies as they have a very high export rate there (Elbit, Rafael,...).

Re: How much countries spend in R&D

#50

Post by tomxor »

tragomaskhalos wrote: post #11
sremani wrote: post #6

Given the expansive definition of R&D esp. given the tax rebates companies get in their respective countries even a website using a new framework can be categorized as Research and Development. So that begs the question how do we qualify real "R&D" from fake R&D ? what are the markers a curious investigator should look for in this pile of data ?

Absolutely - in the past I've been asked to review past work to see if it qualifies as R&D for tax purposes; this was all bespoke client stuff really, but the retrospective criterion was a vague handwave about reusability.

Yes I had exactly the same experience! it seems like the people reviewing what qualifies have absolutely no technical understanding.

Even when trying to be honest, the questions are posed so vaguely that they are really relying on you taking the moral high ground when choosing what _you_ think qualifies as R&D, even then it becomes an internal battle of definitions.

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