The Impact of Nsf Support for Basic Research in Economic

This paper studies an unusually rich data set of all the 1473 applications to the NSF in economics during 1985-1990. It provides a rare opportunity to analyze not only the characteristics of the researchers whose application was accepted (414 applications in our sample), but also those whose applications were rejected. This implies that one can investigate the impact of an NSF grants on the research output (quality-adjusted publications) of individual researchers. Using non-parametric techniques, as well as more conventional regression analyses, we find that the NSF effect is modest, apart for the more junior scholars. We also address some ancillary questions, like the factors that affect the NSF selection process and the decision about the size of the grants.

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