They also doubt that science has somehow become less valuable, an argument proposed by prominent economists like Robert Gordon of Northwestern University. Citations of recent scientific research are as common in corporate patents today as they were in the 1980s, suggesting science remains critical to companies’ innovation.

Still, something has clearly changed: Investors may value corporate patents as much as ever, but the stock market places a lower valuation on original research than it did three decades ago. Corporate executives, their compensation tied overwhelmingly to short-term gains in the market value of their companies, may be responding accordingly.

Science has always been risky. Xerox was not the main beneficiary of the graphical user interface. Apple and Microsoft were. Bell Labs might not have poured much money into discovering cosmic microwave background radiation without the backing of a deep-pocketed telephone monopoly.

Harassed by international competition in our more cutthroat era, companies have less incentive to create knowledge that may or may not be profitable. Instead, they are encouraged to patent more intensely, to protect what profitable knowledge they already have.

Can innovation survive this realignment?

Ultimately a dearth of research threatens productivity growth, which slowed sharply over the last decade to less than half the average of the previous 10 years. It leaves young scientists in the lurch, without projects on which to apply their knowledge. It discourages young Americans from pursuing scientific careers.

Congressional efforts to bolster corporate research by making the R&D tax credit permanent are unlikely to help much. Already extended umpteen times since it came into being in 1981, the credit “delivered, at most, a modest stimulus to domestic business R&D investment from 2000 to 2010,” according to the Congressional Research Service.

Congress might do better by getting out of the way. Efforts by congressional Republicans to reshape federal research policy through the reauthorization of the America Competes Act, reducing funding in crucial areas like climate change and geoscience, among other provisions, could do real damage to the nation’s research effort.