Comments Welcome Search in Research: An Evolutionary Approach to Technical Change and Growth*

In this paper, we seek to provide microfoundations to the technology sector in R&D-based endogenous growth models. Instead of focusing on the accumulation of technology, we model the process of technology creation: how researchers search a vast space of ideas to generate new technologies. Our model of search in research introduces a search algorithm that has found widespread application in the (social) sciences, both as an optimization tool and as a learning model. We use the algorithm to provide structure to the evolution of technological change: how researchers select, imitate, and experiment with ideas in the hope of finding new technologies. The search algorithm expands the set of determinants of the growth rate in a closed economy. It also allows for richer cross-country growth dynamics following globalization (defined as the exchange of ideas with other countries). The increased diversity of ideas associated with globalization may impart either positive or negative growth effects on both leader and laggard economies. JEL Classification (031, 041)