Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke made the case for government support for research and development yesterday.  Speaking at The Conference Board's New Building Blocks for Jobs and Economic Growth conference, Bernanke said that "innovation and technological change are undoubtedly central" to economic growth and widening prosperity.  And he argued that government has a key role in sparking innovation:

Governments in many countries directly support scientific and technical research, for example, through grant-providing agencies (like the National Science Foundation in the United States) or through tax incentives (like the R&D tax credit). In addition, the governments of the United States and many other countries run their own research facilities, including facilities focused on nonmilitary applications such as health. The primary economic rationale for a government role in R&D is that, absent such intervention, the private market would not adequately supply certain types of research.3 The argument, which applies particularly strongly to basic or fundamental research, is that the full economic value of a scientific advance is unlikely to accrue to its discoverer, especially if the new knowledge can be replicated or disseminated at low cost. For example, James Watson and Francis Crick received a minute fraction of the economic benefits that have flowed from their discovery of the structure of DNA. If many people are able to exploit, or otherwise benefit from, research done by others, then the total or social return to research may be higher on average than the private return to those who bear the costs and risks of innovation. As a result, market forces will lead to underinvestment in R&D from society's perspective, providing a rationale for government intervention.

Read the full speech here.