10.1184/R1/6472025.v1
Ashish Arora
Ashish
Arora
Alfonso Gambardella
Alfonso
Gambardella
The Impact of NSF Support For Basic Research in Economics
Carnegie Mellon University
1997
public funding
scientific research
program evaluation
1997-01-01 00:00:00
Journal contribution
https://kilthub.cmu.edu/articles/journal_contribution/The_Impact_of_NSF_Support_For_Basic_Research_in_Economics/6472025
This paper studies an unusually rich data set of all the 1473 applications to the NSF in economics
during 1985-1990. This dataset is unusual in that one can observe the characteristics of the
scientists whose application was accepted (414 applications in our sample) as well as of those
whose applications were rejected. We estimate the effect of an NSF grants on the research output
(quality-adjusted publications) of individual researchers. Estimates indicate that NSF funding has
only a modest effect on scientific publication output, with the possible exception of junior
scholars. We also analyse some related issues, such as the factors that affect the NSF selection
process and the decision about the size of the grants.