INDUSTRY RESOURCE ALLOCATION TO BASIC RESEARCH UNDER NORMALLY DISTRIBUTED BENEFITS*
研究了在收益呈正态分布时，行业对基础研究的资源分配行为，验证并扩展了先前指数分布假设下的结论，为政府纠正研发投资不足提供政策参考。
ABSTRACT The failure of a free market system to attain socially optimal allocation of resources to research and development (R&D) is a generally recognized problem. However, we are just beginning to understand the types of R&D activities that receive relatively serious underinvestment from specific types of industries and the types of governmental intervention strategies that are likely to be effective and efficient in the correction of that underinvestment. Recently, Joglekar and Hamburg [16] [17] sought answers to these types of questions using models of the resource allocation behavior of firms considering investment in basic research related to their industry. It was assumed that the firms' benefits were exponentially distributed. In the present article, such benefits are assumed to be normally distributed, and an attempt is made to verify the earlier conclusions and policy implications of [16] and [17]. The results are similar for these two substantially different types of distribution, but the earlier conclusions and policy implications are clarified, qualified, and extended.