Wallace E. Huffman

WP #10018, June 2010

The USDA is attempting to shift more research funds into competitive grants involving collaboration across disciplines on large projects. This type of research structure raises a host of information and incentive issues. The objective of this paper is to shed new light on principal-agent problems that are likely to arise in this new funding structure.

Keywords: incentives, Principal-agent model, team research, competitive grants, multi-disciplinary research

Full Text