“The impact of public research contracts on scientific productivity”

We analyze a competitive research-oriented public program established in Spain, the Ramon y Cajal Program, intended to o¤er contracts in public research centers to high-quality researchers. We study the e¤ects of the Program on the ex-post scienti…c productivity of its recipients, relative to unsuccessful applicants with comparable curricula at the time of application. The full sample results demonstrate that the Program has a positive and signi…cant e¤ect on the scienti…c impact of the recipients, as measured by the average and the maximum impact factors, but the e¤ect on the number of published papers is not signi cant. Consequently, receiving a contract does not signi…cantly a¤ect the quantity, but increases the quality, of the contract recipients’publications. This result is primarily driven by the particular relevance of experimental sciences in the Program.