Working Papers & Projects
New Facts and Data about Professors and their Research
with Wei Yang Tham, Jerry Thursby, Marie Thursby, Nina Cohodes, Karim Lakhani, Rachel Mural, and Yilun Xu
Download working paper (last updated March 2024)
Reports seven new features of how research-active professors are compensated, how they spend their time, and how they perceive their research pursuits based on a new survey.
Money, Time, and Grant Design
with Wei Yang Tham
Download working paper (last updated March 2024)
The effect of research grant design -- the amount of money awarded and duration that money is available -- has statistically significant but practically small effects on researchers' intentions in a thought experiment, but researchers show a much stronger preference for relative increases in money compared to relative increases in time. This suggests selection effects of grant designs are more important than any treatment effects.
No Free Lunch? Welfare Analysis of Firms Selling Through Expert Intermediaries
with Matt Grennan, Ashley Swanson, and Aaron Chatterji
[conditionally accepted, Review of Economic Studies]
Download working paper (last updated July 2023)
Is it good or bad when firms take doctors out to lunch? In the case we study -- cholesterol-lowering statins -- it seems like it's good for consumers because it drives certain doctors to prescribe more of these drugs that they'd otherwise not use enough.
Some Tradeoffs of Competition in Grant Contests
Download working paper (last updated March 2024)
It is important to understand the externalities associated with participation in scientific grant contests -- private costs and social costs are not always the same.
Producing and Steering Researchers
with Eugenie Dugoua, Todd Gerarden, and Jacquelyn Pless
What does it cost the government to produce new researchers focused on specific technologies?