 Opportunities and benefits as determinants of the direction of scientific researchJay Bhattacharya and Mikko Packalen Journal of Health Economics, 2011, vol. 30, issue 4, 603-615 Abstract: Abstract Scientific research and private-sector technological innovation differ in objectives, constraints, and organizational forms. Scientific research may thus not be driven by the direct practical benefit to others in the way that private-sector innovation is. Alternatively, some - yet largely unexplored - mechanisms drive the direction of scientific research to respond to the expected public benefit. We test these two competing hypotheses of scientific research. This is important because any coherent specification of what constitutes the socially optimal allocation of research requires that scientists take the public practical benefit of their work into account in setting their agenda. We examine whether the composition of medical research responds to changes in disease prevalence, while accounting for the quality of available research opportunities. We match biomedical publications data with disease prevalence data and develop new methods for estimating the quality of research opportunities from textual information and structural productivity parameters. Keywords: Scientific; research; Induced; innovation; Research; opportunity; Non-profit; incentives; Textual; econometrics (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:30:y:2011:i:4:p:603-615 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Health Economics is currently edited by J. P. Newhouse, A. J. Culyer, R. Frank, K. Claxton and T. McGuire More articles in Journal of Health Economics from Elsevier |
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