Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?

Evidence that each new advance now takes more researchers than in the past, and what that means for future growth.

The number of scientists and engineers in the world has grown enormously over the past century. Yet productivity growth in many rich countries has been slower in recent decades than in the mid-twentieth century. A famous paper asks whether this is because ideas are getting harder to find.

The evidence

In 2020 the economists Nicholas Bloom, Charles Jones, John Van Reenen and Michael Webb published a paper titled “Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?”. They measured research productivity: how much progress is achieved per researcher.

Their best-known example is Moore’s law, the observation that the number of transistors on a computer chip doubled roughly every two years. This pace held for decades. But the authors found that the number of researchers needed to keep it going rose enormously. By their estimate, it took more than 18 times as many researchers in the 2010s to achieve the same doubling as in the early 1970s.

They found similar patterns in agriculture, where crop yields kept rising but required ever more research effort, and in medicine. Across the U.S. economy, research effort had risen sharply while productivity growth had not.

Fishing in a pond

Think of ideas as fish in a pond. The first fishers catch the easiest fish near the surface. Later fishers must use bigger boats and nets to catch the fish that remain in deeper water. More effort is needed for each catch. Research may work similarly: early discoveries pick the easier ideas, leaving harder ones for later.

What it means

If ideas are getting harder to find, keeping growth going requires ever more research effort. So far, the world has managed this by training more researchers, especially as countries like China and India expand their scientific workforce. But as population growth slows in many countries, this approach may be harder to sustain.

Reasons for optimism

Not everyone is pessimistic. New tools, such as artificial intelligence applied to scientific research, could raise research productivity. Some fields may open up entirely new opportunities, as biology did with gene sequencing. And the global pool of researchers is still growing as more countries invest in education.

Thinking innovation has stopped

The research does not say innovation has stopped. Progress continues in chips, crops and medicine. The finding is that each step now takes more effort, which means sustaining progress requires growing investment in research.

Key takeaways

A 2020 study found research productivity has fallen across many fields.
Keeping Moore's law going required more than 18 times as many researchers as in the early 1970s.
Sustaining growth may require ever more research effort.
New research tools and a growing global workforce offer reasons for optimism.