Other Writing
Experimentation at the NIH
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Link to Brookings Conference on "Building a better NIH"
Argues that the NIH could further its impact by partnering with social scientists and declaring an explicit objective to perform experiments and discover the most effective ways to evaluate and fund science.
The COVID-19 Pandemic and Academic Research Enterprise
in Resilience and Ingenuity: Global Innovation Responses to COVID-19
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Link to full e-book
Summarizes evidence surrounding the effect of the pandemic on academic research as of early 2022.
Which Scientists Shifted their Research Focus to the COVID-19 Pandemic?
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The adjustment costs of science played an important role in shaping which scientists decided to shift the focus of their research to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Towards Recovery: Scientists with Better Ratings of their Institution’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic have More Optimistic Forecasts about their Future Research
with Karim Lakhani and Dashun Wang
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We show how scientists’ forecasts of pandemic-related disruptions to their research depend on the eventual length of the COVID-19 pandemic. Scientists that approve of their institution’s response to the pandemic have more optimistic forecasts, even when controlling for their current level of disruptions and many other confounding factors.
Pharmaceutical Trends, Not What They Seem
with Mark Pauly
In Managing Discovery in the Life Sciences, eds. Philip Rea, Mark Pauly, and Lawton Burns, pp. 18-42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018
The pharmaceutical industry might be doing ok despite many concerns.
The Direction of Biomedical Science
Prepared for NBER-IFS International Network on the Value of Medical Research
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How should the allocation of science in the economy be determined? How do scientists choose to pursue different types of trajectories? How do public policies influence these macro- and micro-level outcomes? This survey outlines longstanding questions and recent research surrounding the economics of science with a focus on biomedical research.