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Private Science vs. Government Science
By Chris Edwards of Cato.
"In researching an upcoming study on privatization, I came across
an interesting illustration of the advantages of private science over
government science. Private science focuses on efficiency and results,
but government science maybe not so much.
The study by Jonathan Karpoff in the Journal of Political Economy found:
From 1818 to 1909, 35 government and 57 privately-funded
expeditions sought to locate and navigate a Northwest Passage, discover
the North Pole, and make other significant discoveries in arctic
regions. Most major arctic discoveries were made by private expeditions.
Most tragedies were publicly funded. By other measures as well,
publicly-funded expeditions performed poorly. … Although public
expeditions made some significant discoveries, they did so at
substantially higher cost (as measured by crew size or vessel tonnage)
than private discoveries.
Historical accounts indicate that, compared to private expeditions,
public expeditions: (1) employed leaders that were relatively
unmotivated and unprepared for arctic exploration; (2) separated the
initiation and implementation functions of executive leadership; and (3)
adapted slowly to new information about clothing, diet, shelter, modes
of arctic travel, organizational structure, and optimal party size.
These shortcomings resulted from, and contributed to, poorly aligned
incentives among key contributors.
My upcoming study will look at the advantages of privatizing federal
activities such postal services, air traffic control, and passenger
rail. But policymakers should also explore the advantages of privatizing
federal science activities.
Cato adjunct Terence Kealey has written about the advantages of private over government science, and he will discuss that topic at an upcoming Chicago seminar.
Meanwhile, if you plan to explore the Arctic, it would be best to go
on a private rather than government ship. There would be less chance of
getting scurvy–at least that’s the way it used to be, according to
Karpoff."
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