Abstract: This paper examines the effects on growth and productivity of the R&D activities using a version of Jones´ leader-follower model that allows different scenarios. The model is tested for economies close to the frontier, as the United States and some leading European countries. We first assume that the world technological frontier lays on US. The results indicate that follower countries rely on innovations from the US for over 55%. However, these findings are not robust to alternative definitions of the frontier. We then consider a different scenario, the frontier transcending the leader, to undertake how improvements occur in different economies responding to imitation or innovation. In this case, the average performance of the R&D workforce rises, though reducing the dispersion among countries. The impact on growth is significant, in so far as steady-state rates double, i.e. the American?s rises from 0.5 to 1%.

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