Political Influence behind the Veil of Peer Review: An Analysis of Public Biomedical Research Funding in the United States

Deepak Hegde

Journal of Law and Economics, 2009, vol. 52, issue 4, 665-690

Abstract: The U.S. public biomedical research system is renowned for its peer review process that awards federal funds to meritorious research performers. Although congressional appropriators do not earmark federal funds for biomedical research performers, I argue that they support allocations for those research fields that are most likely to benefit performers in their constituencies. Such disguised transfers mitigate the reputational penalties to appropriators of interfering with a merit-driven system. I use data on all peer-reviewed grants by the National Institutes of Health during the years 1984-2003 and find that performers in the states of certain House Appropriations Committee members receive 5.9-10.3 percent more research funds than those at unrepresented institutions. The returns to representation are concentrated in state universities and small businesses. Members support funding for the projects of represented performers in fields in which they are relatively weak and counteract the distributive effect of the peer review process. (c) 2009 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

Date: 2009
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