AI Business LensTHE BUSINESS OF AI, FOR PEOPLE WHO TEACH IT OR LEARN FROM IT
NBER Working Papers · November 2, 2026 · On the brief until November 16, 2026

Public R&D and the Automation of Manufacturing: Evidence from the Space Race -- by Apoorva Babbar, Shawn Kantor, Alexander Whalley, Jingyuan Zeng

EconomicsHistoryPublic Policy
THE AI ANGLE
Not evaluated in the historical Space Race study

Researchers evaluated NASA investments from the Cold War Space Race between 1947 and 1992. They found NASA-funded patents focused heavily on automation compared to other patents in the same fields. Places with greater exposure to these investments experienced persistent declines in their manufacturing labor share.

Summary written by AI Business Lens with an AI model from the article at nber.org. It is not the article, and the publisher has not reviewed it. For publishers.

THE TEACHING ANGLE
Government research spending can lower the manufacturing labor share across regions without altering the skill mix of the workforce.

Read the original at nber.org   Generate teaching or study materials

Instructors get discussion guides, assignments, and mini-cases. Students and readers get a plain summary, points to raise, an exercise, and a self-check. All built from the full article. A free account saves stories and gives you three generations. Stories stay on the brief for 14 days. After that this page keeps the link to the original.

More in Economics