STEM+ Productivity, Development, and Wealth, 1900–2012

Abstract

Purpose

The authors seek to better understand the relationships between science production, national wealth, inequality, and human development around the globe.

Design

The chapter uses econometric models, including Granger causality, to test alternate hypotheses about whether more economic wealth is related to more science or if more science leads to more wealth.

Findings

The immediate result of our models is that a country’s wealth contributes to the conditions necessary for productive science. While large countries produce many research articles in the STEM+ fields more or less irrespective of their per capita GDP, with countries like the Soviet Union, China, or India being important contributors to world science, the most productive countries were the richer ones. GDP per capita values are important predictors for higher numbers of STEM+ research articles adjusted for population size. Nevertheless, human development and income equality also have a positive relationship with science productivity. While the effect of income equality is less strong, it has importantly and steadily increased over the last 50 years.

Originality/Value

This chapter is among the first to show that countries with similar levels of human development that are more equal in income distribution are more productive in science, while countries of similar wealth that are more equal in income distribution are not necessarily more productive in science.

Citation

Mihai, I.A. and Reisz, R.D. (2017), "STEM+ Productivity, Development, and Wealth, 1900–2012", The Century of Science (International Perspectives on Education and Society, Vol. 33), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 249-276. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-367920170000033012