James Adams

Research: Growth and technical change, labor, and public economics.

Bio: James D. Adams is Professor of Economics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY. In addition he is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Prior to joining Rensselaer he was a Professor of Economics at the University of Florida. He has also held visiting appointments at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Bureau of the Census, and the George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State at the University of Chicago. He recently served on the Telecommunications R&D Board of the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC and currently serves in an advisory capacity to the Advanced Technology Program of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology. He received a BA in economics from the University of New Mexico in 1967 and a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago in 1976.

Dr. Adams has published numerous articles on the economics of technical change, with emphasis on the causes and consequences of industrial and academic research and development, as well as numerous articles in the fields of labor and public economics. His current research focuses on the limits of the firm in research and development, the measurement of scientific influence, the identification of alternative channels of knowledge externalities in the economy, the structure and meaning of scientific teams and collaborations, the speed of diffusion of scientific research, the interaction between investment in industrial research and development and investment in physical capital, and the determinants of research and teaching productivity in academia.