The Role of R&D Investments on Labor Force: The Case of Selected Developed Countries

Whether the change in R&D spending creates technological unemployment, in particular, is a controversial issue. Acceptance of this hypothesis might not be possible under all circumstances. At this point, especially if country-based research is conducted, it might be the right choice to consider the countries with the highest R&D expenditure. This study empirically analyses the role of R&D spending on unemployment by using annual data from 1996 to 2017 of 15 developed countries. In empirical results, it was first determined that there is no co-integration between the ratio of R&D expenditures to GDP and the unemployment rate. Therefore, an attempt was made to determine the existence of a hidden co-integration among the shocks of these variables. The direction of asymmetric causality among them was investigated as a result of the detection of findings that is evidence of hidden co-integration. Although there is an otherwise observation, asymmetric causality analysis results predominantly show that there is causality from R&D expenditures to unemployment.