How to Motivate Fundamental Innovation: Optimal Interactions Between Entrepreneurs, Venture Capitalists, and the Government
研究了企业家、风险投资家和政府在资助根本性创新（如新冠疫苗）中的角色，分析了政府补贴与创新奖项的选择，以及政府与风险投资的最优互动，为政府支持创新的行业和技术选择提供框架。
We analyze the roles of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists (VCs), and the government in financing fundamental innovations, defined as those with a positive social value net of development costs but often with negative net present values to innovating firms, for example, a vaccine against COVID-19. We first analyze the case where the entrepreneur, with or without VC financing, develops innovations. We then analyze government support of innovation and the government’s choice between subsidies and innovation prizes. We further analyze the optimal interactions between government and VC financing, showing that the government may optimally channel subsidies partially through VCs, thus rationalizing government-funded VCs. Overall, our paper provides a framework for the optimal choice of sectors and technologies to receive government support (e.g., subsidies included in the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022) and how any government support should be structured to best motivate innovation. This paper was accepted by Lin William Cong, finance. Funding: O. Bayar was supported by a summer research grant [COB INTRA grant] from the College of Business, University of Texas at San Antonio. T. J. Chemmanur acknowledges summer research support from Boston College and additional funding from a Hillenbrand Distinguished Fellowship. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.06188