Employment, Development and Research Expenditure in European Union: analysis of causality and comparison with the United States, 1993-2003

We analyse causality between real values of expenditure on Research and Development, RD, and Gross Domestic Product, Gdp, in 15 countries of European Union and the United States for 1993-2003, by means of Granger´s test and an interdependent dynamic model. The lower averages of RD expenditure per inhabitant of many European countries, in comparison with the US, play an important role to explain lower levels of real Gdp per inhabitant and lower rates of Employment. The main conclusion points to the convenience of fostering support to research in several European countries in all fields, both technological and non-technological, in order to get a higher degree of convergence to the levels of income per inhabitant and rates of employment of the USA.