IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejapp/v12y2020i4p103-34.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Elasticity of Science

Author

Listed:
  • Kyle Myers

Abstract

This paper identifies the degree to which scientists are willing to change the direction of their work in exchange for resources. Data from the National Institutes of Health are used to estimate how scientists respond to targeted funding opportunities. Inducing a scientist to change their direction by a small amount—to work on marginally different topics—requires a substantial amount of funding in expectation. The switching costs of science are large. The productivity of grants is also estimated, and it appears the additional costs of targeted research may be more than offset by more productive scientists pursuing these grants.

Suggested Citation

  • Kyle Myers, 2020. "The Elasticity of Science," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 103-134, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:12:y:2020:i:4:p:103-34
    DOI: 10.1257/app.20180518
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20180518
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20180518.data
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20180518.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20180518.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/app.20180518?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bajari, Patrick & Hong, Han & Krainer, John & Nekipelov, Denis, 2010. "Estimating Static Models of Strategic Interactions," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 28(4), pages 469-482.
    2. Gary S. Becker, 1962. "Investment in Human Capital: A Theoretical Analysis," NBER Chapters, in: Investment in Human Beings, pages 9-49, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Deepak Hegde & Bhaven Sampat, 2015. "Can Private Money Buy Public Science? Disease Group Lobbying and Federal Funding for Biomedical Research," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(10), pages 2281-2298, October.
    4. Bhattacharya, Jay & Packalen, Mikko, 2011. "Opportunities and benefits as determinants of the direction of scientific research," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 603-615, July.
    5. Pierre Azoulay & Joshua S. Graff Zivin & Jialan Wang, 2010. "Superstar Extinction," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(2), pages 549-589.
    6. Pierre Azoulay & Christian Fons-Rosen & Joshua S. Graff Zivin, 2019. "Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(8), pages 2889-2920, August.
    7. Pierre Azoulay & Joshua S Graff Zivin & Danielle Li & Bhaven N Sampat, 2019. "Public R&D Investments and Private-sector Patenting: Evidence from NIH Funding Rules," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(1), pages 117-152.
    8. Scott Stern, 2004. "Do Scientists Pay to Be Scientists?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(6), pages 835-853, June.
    9. Kevin J. Boudreau & Eva C. Guinan & Karim R. Lakhani & Christoph Riedl, 2016. "Looking Across and Looking Beyond the Knowledge Frontier: Intellectual Distance, Novelty, and Resource Allocation in Science," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(10), pages 2765-2783, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kyle Myers & Wei Yang Tham, 2023. "Money, Time, and Grant Design," Papers 2312.06479, arXiv.org.
    2. Hussinger, Katrin & Pellens, Maikel, 2019. "Guilt by association: How scientific misconduct harms prior collaborators," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 516-530.
    3. Liu, Meijun & Hu, Xiao, 2021. "Will collaborators make scientists move? A Generalized Propensity Score analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1).
    4. Azoulay, Pierre & Ganguli, Ina & Graff Zivin, Joshua, 2017. "The mobility of elite life scientists: Professional and personal determinants," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 573-590.
    5. Lu Liu & Benjamin F. Jones & Brian Uzzi & Dashun Wang, 2023. "Data, measurement and empirical methods in the science of science," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(7), pages 1046-1058, July.
    6. Jasjit Singh & Ajay Agrawal, 2011. "Recruiting for Ideas: How Firms Exploit the Prior Inventions of New Hires," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(1), pages 129-150, January.
    7. Tat Y. Chan & Jia Li & Lamar Pierce, 2014. "Learning from Peers: Knowledge Transfer and Sales Force Productivity Growth," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(4), pages 463-484, July.
    8. Geuna, Aldo & Shibayama, Sotaro, 2015. "Moving Out Of Academic Research: Why Scientists Stop Doing Research?," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis LEI & BRICK - Laboratory of Economics of Innovation "Franco Momigliano", Bureau of Research in Innovation, Complexity and Knowledge, Collegio 201501, University of Turin.
    9. Sebastian Hager & Carlo Schwarz & Fabian Waldinger, 2024. "Measuring Science: Performance Metrics and the Allocation of Talent," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(12), pages 4052-4090, December.
    10. Bergemann, Dirk & Ottaviani, Marco, 2021. "Information Markets and Nonmarkets," CEPR Discussion Papers 16459, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Khanna, Rajat, 2021. "Aftermath of a tragedy: A star's death and coauthors’ subsequent productivity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(2).
    12. Pierre Azoulay & Danielle Li, 2020. "Scientific Grant Funding," NBER Working Papers 26889, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Bruno S. Frey & Anthony Gullo, 2020. "Sic transit gloria mundi: What remains of famous economists after their deaths?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(1), pages 283-298, April.
    14. Aslan, Yasemin & Yaqub, Ohid & Rotolo, Daniele & Sampat, Bhaven N., 2023. "Cross-category spillovers in medical research," SocArXiv hpmxd, Center for Open Science.
    15. Jelnov, Pavel & Weiss, Yoram, 2022. "Influence in economics and aging," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    16. Henry Sauermann & Michael Roach, 2011. "Not All Scientists pay to be Scientists:," DRUID Working Papers 11-03, DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies.
    17. Myra Mohnen, 2022. "Stars and Brokers: Knowledge Spillovers Among Medical Scientists," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(4), pages 2513-2532, April.
    18. Rons, Nadine, 2018. "Bibliometric approximation of a scientific specialty by combining key sources, title words, authors and references," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 113-132.
    19. Li, Meiling & Wang, Yang & Du, Haifeng & Bai, Aruhan, 2024. "Motivating innovation: The impact of prestigious talent funding on junior scientists," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(9).
    20. Natarajan Balasubramanian & Mariko Sakakibara, 2015. "Human Capital of Spinouts," Working Papers 15-06, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H51 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Health
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:12:y:2020:i:4:p:103-34. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.