Growth Is a Conversion Problem

A 45‑year, firm‑level patent panel finds patents per R&D input are stable or rising, and patents remain positively linked to productivity, which undermines the claim that ideas themselves are getting harder to find. Instead, average firm growth has fallen after controlling for idea growth, suggesting the bottleneck is converting ideas into firm‑level scale, complementary investments, or diffusion rather than a scarcity of ideas. — If true, policy should shift from only boosting basic R&D toward removing frictions in adoption, scaling, and diffusion (regulation, market structure, complementary capital, workforce skills).