Optimal public funding for research: a theoretical analysis

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: De Fraja, Gianni
• 署名单位: University of Nottingham; University of Rome Tor Vergata; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR)
• 刊物名称: RAND JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0741-6261
• DOI: 10.1111/1756-2171.12135
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 498-528
• 关键词: university inventions; ECONOMICS

摘要

This article studies how a government should distribute funds among research institutions and how it should allocate them to basic and applied research. Institutions differ in reputation and efficiency and have an information advantage. The government should award funding for basic research to induce the most productive institutions to carry out more applied research than they would like. Institutions with better reputation a do more research than otherwise identical ones, and applied research is inefficiently concentrated in the most efficient high-reputation institutions. The article provides theoretical support for a dual-channel funding mechanism but not for full economic costing.