Economics Program Grants is sponsored by Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The Sloan Economics Program funds fundamental, rigorous economic research that serves as a public good, expanding knowledge of key economic forces, developing new evidence and methodologies, informing decision-makers, and improving economic and social welfare in the United States.

Focus areas include the Economics of Science and Technology, the Economics of Transportation and Infrastructure, the Economics of Caregiving, and Strengthening the Economics Profession.

The Sloan Economics Program funds fundamental, rigorous economic research that serves as a public good in expanding knowledge of key economic forces, developing new evidence and methodologies, informing decision-makers, and improving economic and social welfare in the United States.

The Economics of Science and Technology includes industrial strategy, emerging technologies, regional development, scientific careers, funding practices, and the productivity of the scientific enterprise.

Examples of recent grants in this area include the following projects: Donna Ginther, University of Kansas Center for Research ( G-2024-22494 ) : To study the trade-off between hiring staff scientists or postdoctoral scholars to work in scientific laboratories Daniela Scur, Cornell University ( G-2023-19620 ) To conduct the first large-scale and methodologically rigorous survey on management practices and culture in research laboratories Amy Finkelstein, MIT ( G-2023-19617 ) To expand, diversify, and support the community of metascience researchers conducting randomized controlled trials that test ways of strengthening the processes and pace of scientific progress Catherine Tucker, NBER ( G-2023-19618 ) To study the Economics of Digitization and of Artificial Intelligence in a newly unified Working Group that covers both topics Megan MacGarvie, NBER ( G-2024-22428 ) To strengthen economics research on science funding practices and their impacts by holding conferences, producing a handbook, running boot camps, conducting site visits, and other means of community building David Robinson, NBER ( G-2024-22521 ) To organize research on regional disparities in innovation and new business formation The Economics of Transportation and Infrastructure includes research on the costs, benefits, opportunities, and bottlenecks associated with building world-class infrastructure in the U.S. Examples of recent grants in this area include the following projects: Milena Almagro, The University of Chicago ( G-2024-22704 ) To analyze economic, technological, and social factors that determine the success of urban transportation systems in theory and in practice Edward Glaeser, NBER ( G-2024-22705 ) To study transportation infrastructure challenges in the United States, including project selection, financing strategies, and procurement practices The Economics of Caregiving includes research on the costs, benefits, opportunities, and bottlenecks associated with providing world-class caregiving in the U.S. for those who cannot take care of themselves.

Examples of recent grants in this area include the following projects: Aaron Sojourner, Upjohn Institute for Employment Research ( G-2024-22667 ) To aid the design of workforce policies in the childcare sector by estimating the responsiveness of the labor supply to changes in wages, child-staff ratios, and other job characteristics Misty Heggeness, University of Kansas Center for Research ( G-2023-19637 ) To compile and collect high quality data about the U.S. Care Economy for use both by researchers and, through an online statistical dashboard, by the public as well Alison Gopnik, University of California- Berkeley ( G-2023-20984 ) To establish an interdisciplinary research program on the social science of caregiving and build empirical and theoretical foundations for the cognitive economics of care Nancy Folbre, PERI Support Fund ( G-2024-22493 ) To improve the availability, accessibility, and accuracy of data on the U.S. care economy Gal Wettstein, Boston College ( G-2024-22514 ) To analyze how reimbursement policies for home-and-community-based services (HCBS) impact care recipients and their caregivers Strengthening the Economics Profession includes broad opportunities both to engage with research enablers ranging from new conferences or methodological trainings to new datasets or computational techniques.

Examples of recent grants in this area include the following projects: Janet Currie, NBER ( G-2023-19633 ) To support over 50 programs with thousands of in-person and online participants at the annual NBER Summer Institute Nicholas Huntington-Kline, Seattle University ( G-2022-19377 ) To assess experimentally how “researcher degrees of freedom” influence and potentially distort the publication, interpretation, and reliability of empirical literature Steve Pierson, American Statistical Association ( G-2022-19500 ) To monitor and report on the health of the federal statistical system Andrew Gelman, Columbia University ( G-2024-22518 ) To develop a unified Bayesian approach to estimating heterogeneous causal effects Timothy Bresnahan, NBER ( G-2024-22690 ) To support early-career researchers working on the net federal budgetary impacts of proposed legislation for enhancing U.S. productivity Grant requests move forward based on expert assessments like these: Does the proposal ask compelling questions that align with current Sloan research priorities?

Does the proposal present rigorous methodologies that can answer those questions convincingly? Does the proposal name stakeholders who are ready to help develop, test, and apply those answers?

Grants made in the Economics program are especially: Policy relevant, but neither “policy research” nor advocacy; Motivated by nonideological questions rather than preconceived answers; Engaged with fundamental puzzles, but using fresh approaches; Unbiased, statistically sound, causally conscientious, and readily replicable; Careful about baselines, controls, confounding variables, and econometrics; Savvy about markets, institutions, regulation, transaction costs, behavioral biases, etc.; Contributors to research infrastructure, datasets, or resources for general use; Generators of highly cited and catalytic results in high-quality journals; and Ultimately concerned with the quality of life in the United States.

Call for Letters of Inquiry: Economic Research on the Returns to R&D Investment Pop-up journals for policy research: Can temporary titles deliver answers? The Women Saving America’s Climate Data Sloan Foundation grant supports research on economics of academic publishing Social Science Research Network New Research: Is R&D Rivalry Slowing the Growth of Productive Firms? Alfred P.

Sloan Foundation Sloan and Open Philanthropy Launch New Pop-Up Journal Initiative NEW RESEARCH: The Attribution Crisis in LLM Search Results We welcome brief Letters of Inquiry (LOIs) from researchers with a potential interest in submitting an official grant proposal within the next eighteen months.

A well-written LOI will help the Economics research program staff effectively assess the quality of fit between the proposed research plan and the program’s research priorities. Our LOI checklist is available for download here .

Complete LOIs can be sent to [email protected] /programs/research/economics To provide public goods, including fundamental research, conceptual breakthroughs, and technical advances, that strengthen and accelerate U.S. economic progress.

The Sloan Economics Program funds fundamental, rigorous economic research that serves as a public good in expanding knowledge of key economic forces, developing new evidence and methodologies, informing decision-makers, and improving…