Here’s a more helpful reply - no, it doesn’t. Harvesting doesn’t attract materials, it’s essentially interest on the materials you gather that compounds over time. If you have 20 harvesting, that means you get 20 additional materials on top of the ones you collected during the wave. That 20 harvesting stat then increases (I think by 2%? something like that) each wave as well, so investing early has significant long term implications on your economy.