URC conference on innovation and accumulation.

• Position: Universities Research Conference

The spring 1997 NBER-Universities Research Conference took place on May 2 and 3 and was organized by NBER Faculty Research Fellow Jeffrey R. Campbell of the University of Rochester and NBER Research Associate Paul M. Romer of Stanford University. The conference theme was "Innovation and Accumulation in Firms, Industries, and Nations." The program was:

Andrew Toole, Laurits R. Christensen Associates, "The Impact of Federally Funded Basic Research on Industrial Innovation: Evidence from the Pharmaceutical Industry" Discussant: Frank R. Lichtenberg, NBER and Columbia University Michael Kremer, NBER and MIT, "A Mechanism for Encouraging Innovation"

Discussant: Phil Haile, University of Wisconsin

Suzi Kerr, University of Maryland, College Park, "Timing of Technology Adoption in a Tradeable Permit Market: Empirical Evidence from the U.S. Lead Phasedown" Discussant: Matthew White, Stanford University

Eric A. Hanushek, NBER and University of Rochester, and Dongwook Kim, "Schooling, Labor Force Quality, and the Growth of Nations"

Discussant: Julie Berry Cullen, MIT

Shane Greenstein, NBER and University of Illinois, and Pablo Spiller, University of California, Berkeley, "Estimating the Welfare Effects of Digital Infrastructure" Discussant: Mehmet Yorukoglu, University of Chicago

Anita N. Srivastava, Columbia University, "Impact of Trade Liberalization on Domestic Output, Technical Efficiency, and Profitability"

Discussant: Matthew Slaughter, Dartmouth College

Andrew Atkeson and Patrick Kehoe, NBER and University of Pennsylvania, "Industry Evolution and Transition: A Neoclassical Benchmark"

Discussant: Richard Ericson, Columbia University

Douglas Gollin, Williams College, "Nobody's Business but my Own: Self Employment and Small Enterprise in Economic Development" Discussant: Boyan Jovanovic, NBER and New York University

Marco Da Rin, IGIER and Thomas Hellmann, Stanford University, "Banks as Catalysts for Industrialization"

Discussant: Ross Levine, University of Virginia

Toole explores the direct productivity impact of U.S. government-funded basic biomedical research on the discovery of new chemical entities in the pharmaceutical industry. He finds that public basic research is a significant contributing factor, which influences pharmaceutical innovation roughly 17 years prior to Food and Drug Administration approval and increases the effectiveness of industry expenditure off R and D. His study suggests that a decline in the real growth rate of overall...