The Effect of Government Contracting on Academic Research: An Empirical Analysis of Reputation in Research Procurement

Abstract:     
The growing share of university research funded by industry has sparked concerns that academics will sacrifice traditional scholarly activities to pursue commercial goals. To investigate this concern, I examine the influence of an applied sponsor and consider limitations of the grant funding mechanism. A novel dataset tracks the careers of academic engineers and their relationships with this sponsor. I find that a) researchers who maintain a relationship with the directed sponsor experience a decrease in publications
implying that academics' careers may be a function of the type of funding received, not only talent, b) academic merit does not necessarily serve as a funding criterion for sponsors, and c) citation and publication measures of academic output are often not useful proxies for short-term commercial or social value.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 43

Keywords: Reputation, R&D, Science Productivity, Science Funding, University-Industry Interface, Science Productivity measures

JEL Classification: L2, L3, H5, J4, O3

working papers series