This paper measures R&D efficiency and productivity changes of 24 nations including Korea, Japan and China by the non-parametric Malmquist productivity index. The principle findings of this study are as follows. First, R&D efficiency scores of Korea and Japan are 0.837 and 0.834 respectively. Meanwhile China shows 0.420, the worst performance among the selected countries. Second, Korea marked annual productivity increase of 25%, highest among the selected countries', for 2000-2005. R&D productivity in Japan and China, however, decreased 1.9% and 0.9% respectively. Third, annual rates of technology change and technical efficiency change in Japan are 0.6% and -2.5%. Therefore decrease of productivity in Japan is mainly due to technical inefficiency. In case of China, improvement of technical efficiency is the main contributor to productivity growth but technical progress has edged downward in the sample period. In Korea, with annual rate of technology change and technical efficiency change being 5.2% and 18.2% respectively, both efficiency improvement and technical progress has pulled the R&D productivity growth.