 Useless Knowledge: Directed vrs Non-Directed ResearchJ. Atsu Amegashie No 12304, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Abstract: Much of academic research has been criticized for not being socially useful. Governments sometimes only fund research on particular social issues (e.g., vaccines, renewable energy, electric vehicles). In other cases, they fund research on topics that are independently chosen by scholars. I consider a model in which the value of current research depends on random states in the future. Scientists and a government are uncertain about the future state and thus the future value of current research. The government and scientists get independent and imperfect but informative signals about the future value of research. The government can direct the research of scientists or give them the freedom to choose their research projects (i.e., non-directed research). Even if the government maximizes the social welfare of directed research, scientists do not have better information, and scientists do not maximize the social welfare of their (non-directed) research projects, I show that non-directed research results in a bigger social welfare than directed research. If the accuracy of the signal of the social value of research is high or the two future states are sufficiently different, non-directed research gives a higher social welfare than directed research. Keywords: directed research; non-directed research; scientists; signals; social value (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:ces:ceswps:_12304 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC. |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.