The burgeoning literature on how the benefits from research may be negative for a given price support arbitrarily ignores the costs of price supports for a given level of research. Furthermore, the very existence of price supports is inconsistent with the normative criterion that governments...

This paper develops a political economy framework that determines the factors causing underinvestment in public research expenditures. Governments are unable to fully compensate for unequal income distribution effects of research because of either their inability to make credible commitments or...