3,801 works, 471 books, 3,267 articles, 60 other works, 3 awaiting classification, 150 years of economic thought. Each one summarized and searchable, with cited passages inside.
A research project can matter to a government objective without addressing it directly: its results may enable another discovery, instrument, or experiment along a chain of influence. In this 1965 technical report, Oskar Morgenstern, R. W. Shephard, and H. Grabowski make those indirect effects central to the allocation of research support. Their directed graphs and transfer matrices offer a way to trace scientific interdependence without confusing an agency’s existing portfolio with the full range of relevant knowledge. Yet the authors distinguish mathematical possibility from managerial reliability: coefficients must be estimated, objectives specified, and the model tested against actual research. The report lets readers examine both the promise of network-based funding decisions and the measurement difficulties that keep calculation dependent on scientific judgment.
The test for relevance is whether there exist connected paths between the given research activity and the particular government problem studied.