Ramón y Cajal: Mediation and Meritocracy

Abstract

The Ramón y Cajal Program promotes the hiring of top researchers in Spanish R&D centers and academic institutions. The centralized mechanism associated to the Program is analyzed. The paper models it as a two-sided matching market and studies if it provides the incentives to increase the quality of the researchers hired. We analyze the mechanism both under complete and incomplete information. The comparison of the theoretical findings with the available data points out that the mechanism provides poor incentives and does not prevent collusion between research departments and candidates in the hiring process.