The Fruits of Intellectual Production: Economic and Scientific Specialisation among OECD Countries

This paper brings together data from 14 OECD countries on scientific publications, patents and production specialisation to explore the relationship between economic and production specialisation for 17 manufacturing sectors. Since Marx, there has been a fundamental debate in economics about the link between science and the economic system. Marx argued that the developments in the science system are strongly influenced by changes in the economic sphere, whereas Polanyi argued that developments in science are largely independent of economic sphere. Using a panel data model and econometric estimations at the sectoral-level, the paper assesses the two positions and finds considerable support for Marx’s position, that is, that scientific and production specialisation are, often, tightly linked.