So I'll see you again in 25 years. In the meantime, just be glad the government didn't decide to fund research into man-powered flight. We'd still be gluing feathers to our arms. In a similar vein to James Hudson's polemic above, Walter Williams draws attention to recent US government-funded disasters, particularly research into vaccines that has failed to produce any useful results. Drawing on an article by Rachel Glennester and Michael Kremer, entitled 'A Better Way to Spur Medical Research and Development', he proposes government-funded prizes for vaccines.
Prizes provide strong incentives, because researchers only get the money if their research succeeds.
Either way, the researchers would only receive the financial benefits when the product is delivered. No longer would recipients of government funding have an incentive to delay progress or to be overly optimistic. You can give a rating to this scheme overall. Click 0-10 below and press the Submit button. DoBe.org or click on the image below.