On historical inertia and research intensity

Whereas there is informal and formal recognition and understanding of research inertia in driving the intensity of research, there is little formal evidence on the role of historical and political legacy in affecting research... [ view full abstract ]

Whereas there is informal and formal recognition and understanding of research inertia in driving the intensity of research, there is little formal evidence on the role of historical and political legacy in affecting research intensity. This paper uses data on about 100 nations to address this aspect, focusing on the long, medium and the short-term research intensity. Across two measures of a nation’s antiquity, we find that broader national stability positively affects research intensity both in the long and the medium terms, while the narrower antiquity measure supports these findings, albeit with weak statistical significance. The effects on short-term research intensity lack statistical support across both antiquity measures.