This paper evaluates whether the relative concentration of funding for small, research-oriented firms in a small number of high-tech industries is related to the differences across industries in the level of appropriability or capital constraints facing small firms. To do so, we exploit a novel...

We estimate the long-term effect of public R&D on growth in manufacturing by analyzing new data from the Cold War era Space Race. We develop a novel empirical strategy that leverages US-Soviet rivalry in space technology to isolate windfall R&D spending. Our results demonstrate that public R&D...

There is a long-standing tradition in public research funding agencies of distributing funds via peer review, which aggregates evaluations of proposed research ideas from a group of external experts. Despite complaints that this process is biased against novel ideas, there is poor understanding...

We derive the optimal funding mechanism to incentivize development and production of vaccines against diseases with epidemic potential. In the model, suppliers' costs are private information and investments are noncontractible, precluding cost-reimbursement contracts, requiring fixed-price...

This chapter reviews the data and literature on gender, race and ethnicity differences in research funding in the United States and Europe. The gender gap in research funding has closed at the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health in the United States and substantially...

In the approaching era of genomic medicine, the underrepresentation of minority populations in human genetics and genomics research has raised growing concerns regarding the distributive justice in the translation of biomedical innovations into human health across populations. Quantitative...

Concern exists that public funding of science is increasingly risk averse. Funders have addressed this concern by soliciting the submission of high-risk research to either regular or specially designed programs. Little evidence, however, has been gathered to examine the extent to which such...