Econometric Assessment of Research Programs: A Bayesian Approach

Lin Qin and Steven T. Buccola

No 124948, 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Abstract: Effective research-project assessment typically is impeded by project variety. In particular, bibliometric approaches to science assessment tend to offer little information about the content of the projects examined. We introduce here a new approach – based on Bayesian theory – of econometrically evaluating the factors affecting scientific discovery, and use the method to assess a biological research program comprised of numerous heterogeneous projects. Our knowledge metric not only flexibly accommodates project variety but accounts for information in “failed” as well as “successful” studies. Using a mean-absolute-deviation utility functional form to measure new scientific knowledge, we decompose knowledge gain into a mean-surprise and statistical-accuracy effect. The two effects are econometrically examined independently, and then combined into the net knowledge production function. Research FTE and distance to study site have statistically significant but moderate effects on the amount by which research shifts the prediction of scientific outcome. However, scientist education powerfully improves the research study’s predictive accuracy or precision, a one-percent boost in the average investigator’s formal schooling improving precision by 4.3 percent. Largely on the basis of that precision effect, increasing returns to research project scale are evident.

Keywords: Research; Methods/; Statistical; Methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23
Date: 2012-08-12
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/124948/files/Q ... Selected%20Paper.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea12:124948

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.124948

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().