Schumpetarian profits

Economist William Norhaus has published a NBER paper that attempts to estimate gains from major technological innovation and to ascertain how much was captured by consumers versus the producers.  Here's the money graf:

We conclude that only a minuscule fraction of the social returns from technological advances over the 1948-2001 period was captured by producers, indicating that most of the benefits of technological change are passed on to consumers rather than captured by producers. For the entire postwar period and for the nonfarm business sector, innovators are able to capture about 2.2% of the total surplus from innovation."

In other words, measured in dollar terms, greed heads like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have generated vastly more social value and kept far less than any Church, College or charitable foundation in the land.  Investing in innovation is likely to carry far more quantitative social utility than building that new building at the old U or funding a new wing at Church.  Indeed diverting money from dead weight investments in new buildings at charities towards private sector innovation is perhaps the best way to spread the gospel of truth and light further and faster.

God has made an amazing world, hasn't he?