This paper investigates the impact of federal extramural research funding on total expenditures for life sciences research and development (R&D) at U.S. universities, to determine whether federal R&D funding spurs funding from non-federal (private and state/local government) sources. We use a...

Recent evidence suggests that Medicare Part D has increased prescription drug use among the elderly, and earlier studies have indicated that increasing market size induces pharmaceutical innovation. This paper assesses the impact of Medicare Part D on pharmaceutical research and development...

A National Institutes of Health (NIH) taskforce recently recommended decreasing the number of graduate students supported on research assistantships, and instead favoring traineeship and fellowship funding mechanisms. Using instrumental variables estimation with survey data collected from U.S....

New drug therapies may deliver many social and economic benefits, but current levels of innovation across diseases may not be socially optimal. This dissertation investigates two mechanisms by which governments may influence pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) priorities: (1) public...

While it is generally understood that a gender gap exists in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, less research has been done on women entrepreneurs in the STEM fields. This report expands on the limited literature specific to women entrepreneurs within STEM fields. In...

This paper evaluates how changes in US National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding levels affected US universities’ total biomedical R&D efforts, over a period of dramatic change in the federal funding environment. Instrumental variables estimation reveals that during the NIH budget doubling...

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget expansion from 1998 through 2003 increased demand for biomedical research, raising relative wages and total employment in the market for biomedical scientists. However, because research doctorates in biomedical sciences can often take six years...

The U.S. National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent (SMART) Grant program provided up to$8000 to high-achieving, low-income undergraduates majoring in STEM fields. We evaluate the effects of this financial incentive on college graduates' major fields and subsequent STEM workforce...

The United States’ Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 improved and expanded availability of non-group health insurance. Previous studies have shown that women in the US workforce value health insurance more highly than men do. Because prior to the ACA self-employed individuals did not have...

Foreign-born workers have made significant and substantial contributions to economic productivity and new firm creation in the United States. This paper identifies predictors of entrepreneurial participation among foreign-born workers, combining nationally representative survey datasets covering...