The Economic Laws of Scientific Research

Very interesting book

I love this book and think there is so much in it. Its a book of two halves, the first half is chapters 1-8, taking us up to the modern world from 9-12. I think the most rewarding chapters are easily 9-11 inclusive, but i wouldnt skip the first chapter on Bacon vs Smith. Thats if youre pressed for time.I think most people would be surprised at the many routes of private funding of research as well as the vast amount of it. To put a rough figure on it from 70-90% of research is done privately depending on the country.The first half does have a lot of useful information, Kealey mentions 5 different ways of funding research on page 74 but then later he mentions a 6th, corporative schemes. And you get to learn a lot of interesting tid-bits, and how we slowly advanced to our current condition, and with each advancement our condition improved. He he goes through a lot of history, eventually dedicating chapters to the commercial revolution, the agricultural revolution, and industrial revolution.The real meat for me are chapters 9-11, and thats cause theres so much information (graphs) which are easy to understand and have very clear conclusions. One thing im tempted to do is go into OECD statistics and get the most up to date figures and see have trends held (Which i trust they have) and see if countries have changed their policies at all. But check it out and see for yourself.