The impact of ex-ante subsidies to researchers on researchers' productivity: Evidence from a developing country
Diego Aboal & Ezequiel Tacsir
#2016-019
In this paper we perform a short-run (two years after the programme)
impact evaluation of a programme that provides ex-ante subsidies to
researchers in Paraguay. The analysis of the effects of this type of
subsidies, that are prevalent in Latin America, has received little
attention in the literature. Thanks to the availability of data coming
from electronic CVs of applicants we are able to analyse the impact of
the programme in dimensions of researchers' productivity that have been
mostly overlooked previously, such as technical production, own
education, the training of other researchers and other dimensions of the
bibliographic production different to published articles. We also
provide estimations of the impact on quantity and quality of
publications based on more traditional sources of data. We find some
positive impacts of the programme. However, some of the results are not
robust to alternative methods of estimation.
Keywords: Economics of Science, Scientific Subsidies, Policy Impact
Evaluation
JEL Classification: O30, O38, H43, C21