Should Governments Fund Basic Science? Evidence from a Willingness-to-pay Experiment in Five Universities

Massimo Florio, Francesco Giffoni () and Gelsomina Catalano ()

Departmental Working Papers from Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano

Abstract: Tax-payers are usually the ultimate funders of large-scale research infrastructures (RIs), but the expected discoveries of such projects often do not have any known use-value. By interviewing 1,022 undergraduates, we study the drivers of preferences for paying for basic research, which are still little known. We focus on the LHC at CERN, where the Higgs boson was discovered. Income, awareness, and positive attitudes towards science drive a positive willingness-to-pay for science. Students in social sciences and the humanities are willing to contribute to scientific curricula at least as much as their peers. Findings offer support to government funding of basic research as a public good.

Keywords: Research infrastructures; Basic science; Non-Use Value; Willingness-to-pay; Large Hadron Collider; CERN; Particle Physics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C83 D61 I23 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-10-28
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Should governments fund basic science? Evidence from a willingness-to-pay experiment in five universities (2020)
Journal Article: Should governments fund basic science? Evidence from a willingness-to-pay experiment in five universities (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mil:wpdepa:2018-10

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