The Elasticity of Science

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. (JEL H51, I10, I23, O31, O33)

Crisis and the Trajectory of Science: Evidence from the 2014 Ebola Outbreak

“…Arslan and Tarakci (2020) document that the innovative performance of Ebola inter-organizational partnerships increased during the 2014 outbreak, whilst the performance of partnerships that researchers in domains that are intellectually closer to the crisis topic improve their performance, whilst others take a hit to their productivity. Together with recent work that documents that the research trajectory of female scientists and scientists relying on physical laboratories in the U.S. and Europe is more negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic (Myers et al 2020), these studies reveal that a crisis can cause a shift in scientific activity between topics and researchers.…”

“…Scientists and innovators are economic agents who respond to incentives (Stephan 1996); for example, Myers (2020) finds that U.S. based scientists shift their short-term research agenda in response to targeted funding opportunities from the National Institutes of Health. I build on this work by identifying a case where scientists adapt their research agenda in response to a change in demand for their expertise.…”

Boosting Minority Teacher Recruitment and Retention for a Diverse Future STEM Workforce

“…Researchers generally do not like being told what to work on. They can require a substantial amount of funding to switch to a research topic preferred by a funding agency (Myers 2020).…”

Does Research Save Lives? The Local Spillovers of Biomedical Research on Mortality

“…Although funding is critical for the production of research, so too is expertise and knowledge. Myers (2020) and Azoulay et al (2010) both examine how malleable research topics are to funding opportunities. Researchers need to have expertise and build up knowledge in order to advance science, so there is a lot of persistence in the topics researchers pursue.…”