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Balancing Incentives: The Tension Between Basic and Applied Research

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Author Info
Iain Cockburn
Rebecca Henderson
Scott Stern

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Abstract

This paper presents empirical evidence that the intensity of research workers' incentives for the distinct tasks of basic and applied research are positively associated with each other. We relate this finding to the prediction of the theoretical literature that when effort is multi-dimensional, firms will balance' the provision of incentives; when incentives are strong along one dimension, firms will set high-powered incentives for effort along other dimensions which compete for the worker's effort and attention (Holmstrom and Milgrom, 1991). We test for this effect in the context of pharmaceutical research using detailed data on individual research programs financed by private firms. Consistent with the complementarity hypothesis, we find strong evidence that firms who provide strong promotion-based incentives for individuals to invest in fundamental or basic' research also provide more intense incentives for success in applied research through the capital budgeting process. The intensity of these bonus' incentives is weaker in firms who use a more centralized research budgeting process. We interpret this latter finding as providing support for theories which emphasize substitutability between contractible and non-contractible signals of effort (Baker, Gibbons, and Murphy, 1994).

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 6882.

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Date of creation: Jan 1999
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6882

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Investment Policy

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Rebecca Henderson & Iain Cockburn, 1996. "Scale, Scope, and Spillovers: The Determinants of Research Productivity in Drug Discovery," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(1), pages 32-59, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 841-64, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Holmstrom, Bengt, 1989. "Agency costs and innovation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 305-327, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Slade, Margaret E, 1996. "Multitask Agency and Contract Choice: An Empirical Exploration," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 37(2), pages 465-86, May.
  5. Arora, Ashish, 1996. "Testing for complementarities in reduced-form regressions: A note," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 51-55, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Edward P. Lazear, 2000. "Performance Pay and Productivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1346-1361, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Baker, George & Gibbons, Robert & Murphy, Kevin J, 1994. "Subjective Performance Measures in Optimal Incentive Contracts," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(4), pages 1125-56, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Paul Milgrom and John Roberts., 1987. "Bargaining and Influence Costs and the Organization of Economic Activity," Economics Working Papers 8731, University of California at Berkeley.
  9. Anton, James J & Yao, Dennis A, 1994. "Expropriation and Inventions: Appropriable Rents in the Absence of Property Rights," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 190-209, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Bolton, Patrick & Scharfstein, David S, 1998. "Corporate Finance, the Theory of the Firm, and Organizations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 95-114, Fall. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Aghion, Philippe & Tirole, Jean, 1994. "The Management of Innovation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(4), pages 1185-1209, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Bharant N. Anand & Alexander Galetovic, 1998. "Weak Property Rights and hold-up in R&D," Documentos de Trabajo 39, Centro de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Chile. [Downloadable!]
  13. Casey Ichniowski & Kathryn Shaw & Giovanna Prennushi, 1995. "The Effects of Human Resource Management Practices on Productivity," NBER Working Papers 5333, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Lerner, Josh & Merges, Robert P, 1998. "The Control of Technology Alliances: An Empirical Analysis of the Biotechnology Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(2), pages 125-56, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Baker, George P, 1992. "Incentive Contracts and Performance Measurement," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 598-614, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Joshua S. Cans & Scott Stern, 2000. "Incumbency and R&D Incentives: Licensing the Gale of Creative Destruction," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 9(4), pages 485-511, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Susan Athey & Scott Stern, 1998. "An Empirical Framework for Testing Theories About Complimentarity in Organizational Design," NBER Working Papers 6600, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Aghion, Philippe & Tirole, Jean, 1997. "Formal and Real Authority in Organizations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(1), pages 1-29, February.
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  19. Stein, Jeremy C, 1997. " Internal Capital Markets and the Competition for Corporate Resources," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 111-33, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  20. Cohen, Wesley M & Levinthal, Daniel A, 1989. "Innovation and Learning: The Two Faces of R&D," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(397), pages 569-96, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Erin Anderson & David C. Schmittlein, 1984. "Integration of the Sales Force: An Empirical Examination," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(3), pages 385-395, Autumn. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  23. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1991. "Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(0), pages 24-52, Special I.
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Xia, Yin & Buccola, Steven, 2001. "Are Basic Science And Biotechnology Complementary Activities?," 2001 Annual meeting, August 5-8, Chicago, IL 20575, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association). [Downloadable!]
  2. Francine Lafontaine & Emmanuel Raynaud, 2002. "The Role of Residual Claims and Self-Enforcement in Franchise Contracting," NBER Working Papers 8868, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Motta, Massimo & Rønde, Thomas, 2002. "Trade secret laws, labor mobility, and innovations," Working Papers 08-2002, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Richard A. Jensen & Marie C. Thursby, 2004. "Patent Licensing and the Research University," NBER Working Papers 10758, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Iain Cockburn & Rebecca Henderson & Scott Stern, 1999. "The Diffusion of Science-Driven Drug Discovery: Organizational Change in Pharmaceutical Research," NBER Working Papers 7359, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Josh Lerner & Ulrike Malmendier, 2005. "Contractibility and the Design of Research Agreements," NBER Working Papers 11292, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Sharon Novak & Scott Stern, 2007. "Complementarity Among Vertical Integration Decisions: Evidence from Automobile Product Development," NBER Working Papers 13232, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. N. Lacetera & L. Zirulia, 2008. "Knowledge Spillovers, Competition, and R&D Incentive Contracts," Working Papers 624, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna. [Downloadable!]
  9. Maria Guadalupe & Julie Wulf, 2008. "The Flattening Firm and Product Market Competition: The Effect of Trade Liberalization," NBER Working Papers 14491, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  10. Pablo Casas-Arce & Santhi Hejeebu, Cornell College, 2004. "Job Design and the Benefits of Private Trade," Economics Series Working Papers 204, University of Oxford, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  11. Nicola Lacetera, 2003. "Incentives and spillovers in R&D activities: an agency-theoretic analysis of industry-university relations," Microeconomics 0312004, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
  12. Kim, Kwansoo & Foltz, Jeremy D. & Barham, Bradford, 2002. "Are There Synergies Or Tradeoffs Between Articles And Patents In University Ag-Biotech Research," 2002 Annual meeting, July 28-31, Long Beach, CA 19649, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association). [Downloadable!]
  13. Xia, Yin, 2004. "University Basic Research And Applied Agricultural Biotechnology," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 20187, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association). [Downloadable!]
  14. Stéphane Lhuillery, 2005. "Organisation and location of academic sourcing at the firm level," CEMI Working Papers cemi-report-2005-001, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Collège du Management de la Technologie, Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship Institute, Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation. [Downloadable!]
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