CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 349Intellectual Property and PatentsInnovation Policy and R&DPharmaceutical Economics and Policy

Public R&D Investments and Private-sector Patenting: Evidence from NIH Funding Rules

Open access
Azoulay, Pierre, Graff Zivin, Joshua S, Li, Danielle, Sampat, Bhaven N·2019·The Review of Economic Studies
DOI 10.1093/restud/rdy034PMC PMC6818650
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

We quantify the impact of scientific grant funding at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on patenting by pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms. Our paper makes two contributions. First, we use newly constructed bibliometric data to develop a method for flexibly linking specific grant expenditures to private-sector innovations. Second, we take advantage of idiosyncratic rigidities in the rules governing NIH peer review to generate exogenous variation in funding across research areas. Our results show that NIH funding spurs the development of private-sector patents: a $10 million boost in NIH funding leads to a net increase of 2.3 patents. Though valuing patents is difficult, we report a range of estimates for the private value of these patents using different approaches.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1093/restud/rdy034

Cites

113 of 113 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The federal funding process plays a central role in shaping the direction, diversity, and long-run impact of the US scientific enterprise and the global research landscape.

    “Thus, the federal funding process plays a central role in shaping the direction, diversity, and long-run impact of the US scientific enterprise and—given America’s scientific leadership—the global research landscape as well (3–10).”

    From The rise of large language models and the direction and impact of US federal research funding (2026) · cites this paper as [5]

    The Introduction and Conclusion (pages not provided) show that NIH funding affects the direction and output of US biomedical innovation: funding in a research area increases subsequent private-sector patenting, including patents across disease areas. The paper does not establish that federal funding shapes the diversity or long-run impact of the US scientific enterprise as a whole, or the global research landscape. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Decisions about allocation of taxpayer dollars influence which scientific ideas receive support, which fields advance, and which investigators are able to initiate and sustain research programs.

    “Through competitive grant programs at agencies such as the NSF and the NIH, decisions about the allocation of taxpayer dollars influence which scientific ideas receive support, which fields advance, and which investigators are able to initiate and sustain research programs (3–10).”

    From The rise of large language models and the direction and impact of US federal research funding (2026) · cites this paper as [5]

    The Empirical strategy section (page unavailable) explains that NIH funding rankings determine which applications and research areas receive support. The Grant-level Patent Match section (page unavailable) describes grants for new projects and renewals, but the paper does not establish the broader claims about NSF allocations, the advancement of scientific fields, or investigators’ ability to sustain research programs. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 114 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Heidenreich Paul, and McClellan Mark. 2003 “ The Economic Value of Medical Research” In Murphy Kevin M., and Topel Robert H. (Eds.), Biomedical Research and Then Some: The Causes of Technological Change in Heart Attack Treatment, pp. 163– 205. Chicago: University of Chicago.
  2. Murphy Kevin M., and Topel Robert H.. 2003 “ The Economic Value of Medical Research” In Murphy Kevin M., and Topel Robert H. (Eds.), Measuring the Gains from Medical Research: An Economic Approach, pp. 41– 73. Chicago: University of Chicago.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Azoulay, P., Graff Zivin, J. S., Li, D., & Sampat, B. N.
Affiliations
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
  • UCSD and NBER
  • Columbia University (US)
Corresponding author
Li, Danielle
ORCID
Venue
The Review of Economic Studies
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
2018-06-15
Volume
86
Issue
1
Pages
117-152
ISSN
  • 0034-6527 (ISSN-L)
  • 1467-937X
DOI
10.1093/restud/rdy034
PMC
PMC6818650
OpenAlex
W2112392944
Cited by
349
References
114
Citations by year
2026: 44 · 2025: 68 · 2024: 47 · 2023: 45 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 51 · 2020: 32 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 1
FWCI
35.20
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model (vor)
Locations
  • The Review of Economic Studies (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
Funders
National Institute on Aging (P01AG039347)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Management of Technology and Innovation › Intellectual Property and Patents
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Innovation Policy and R&D
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy
Keywords
government research funding, NIH funding, pharmaceutical industry, biotechnology industry, innovation spillovers

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review