I am a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Duke University. I mainly study innovation policy: how governments subsidize and fund R&D, and how firms and researchers respond to that support.
Industrial Organization · Economics of Innovation · Public Economics · Applied Microeconomics
Job Market Paper
What Lobbying Buys in Defense R&D: Appropriations, Fielded Systems, and Waste
Each year, Congress funds defense R&D programs that the Department of Defense has asked to end. This paper asks what firm lobbying buys inside this appropriations process, and whether the funding it induces produces fielded weapon systems. I link firms' lobbying on individual R&D programs to program-level budget requests, enacted appropriations, and eventual outcomes, and exploit shocks to firms' congressional connections to identify the effect of lobbying on program survival. A structural model of the review process then separates programs that lobbying carries to a fielded capability from those it keeps alive without producing a system.
Working Papers
Reimbursing Innovation: Financial Frictions and Moral Hazard in R&D Grant Design
Abstract
Identifying and Estimating the Knowledge Production Function, and Assessing the Impact of Productivity Dispersion for Misallocation of NIH Funding
Abstract
Data
I share the data used in my research. To request access, please email me at cem.ozdemir@duke.edu.
Congressional Staffer Data
The record of congressional staffers who have served a member of Congress since 1965, with their employment trajectories. Each staffer is linked to the offices and committees they served during their time in Congress.
DoD R&D Project Panel
A project-level panel of late-stage, unclassified Department of Defense R&D projects, built from the annual budget justification documents: requested and enacted funding, milestones and schedules, contractor information, and how each project evolves over time.