Information Economics for Science

Introduction

Given the uncertainty shrouding even the most promising research projects, information plays a key role in the organization of science. The project develops foundational tools in the organizational economics of science, through two inter-linked packages:

I. Comparing Information

Researchers select questions to work on, choose sites for testing, and trim samples when analyzing data. Editors select referees from a pool of potential reviewers.

This package develops a general approach for comparing information structures, such as the selected experiments described above, for decision problems with certain properties. Once decision problems are restricted to a class satisfying properties such as monotonicity, more information structures can be compared than in Blackwell's classic approach.

The proposal presents some ideas for developing general characterization results and for applying the new method to the comparison of experiments produced in a social context.

II. Supporting Science

This package develops a framework for the design of science subsidy schemes with imperfect verification. Researchers have some noisy information about the chances of success of their project and go through a costly selection process.

Research proposals are evaluated by reviewers with imperfect expertise. The aim is to characterize the optimal mix of push and pull incentives for financing knowledge creation and aligning researchers' incentives with social objectives.

A subproject develops a structural methodology for estimating research funding models and applies the method to a unique dataset from the Research Council of Norway (RCN) covering all fields of research and containing detailed information about applicants (whether they are awarded a grant or not) as well as evaluators.