RT Journal Article
T1 Political Regimes, Bureaucracy, and Scientific Productivity
A1 Remo Fernández-Carro, Juan
A1 Lapuente Giné, Víctor
AB Can a scientist trust that the government is going to pay him or her fairly? In the science–government relationship, an incumbent may be better off if he or she does not provide—or does not provide a fair pay to public scientists. We propose a simple game-theoretic model for understanding the trust problem in the relationship between governments and scientists. The model shows how with reliable governments (democracies), bureaucratic contracts (e.g., secure tenure) are not optimal since they have low-powered incentives (in contrast to the highpoweredprivate-sector type of contracts) and run against scientists’ responsiveness to government demands. However, with nonreliablegovernments (dictatorships), bureaucratic contracts are second-best solutions because they protect scientists against the possibility of governments’ misbehavior (i.e., ex post opportunistic defections, such as canceling research programs overnight). An empirical analysis confirmsthe predictions: bureaucratic contracts enhance scientific productivity with nonreliable governments (dictatorships) but hamper scientific productivity with reliable governments (democracies).
PB Wiley-Blackwell
SN 1555-5623
YR 2008
FD 2008-11
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10016/5471
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10016/5471
LA eng
DS e-Archivo
RD 19 may. 2024