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The widespread patenting of research results, the decline in freely available public knowledge, and their implications for innovation, have renewed interest in finding ways to reform the patent system and/or supplement it with other R&D incentives to preserve its benefits while mitigating its costs. This paper explores the advantages and disadvantages of one such alternative: a reinvigorated ex ante R&D “grand prize” system. While prizes have historically provided key incentives to basic research, they have fallen out of such use today. A modern R&D prize system could focus innovative efforts on important societal problems where the answers are not obvious, and which does not rely on a proprietary approach to knowledge. But since a prize system involves an administrative replacement of the market, it also imposes costs: the risk of favoritism, difficulties in picking the most qualified contestant, and duplication of innovative resources. We analyze how prizes might function as incentives to R&D, the associated benefits and costs, and the problem of contest design. Finally, we discuss the degree to which there might be a place in the new economy for the kind of “created,” innovation-enhancing competition implied by an R&D prize system.
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