Matt Clancy

Is replication pro-progress or anti-risk? The role of research integrity in scientific abundance

And in case you missed it, some more thoughts from Jordan on the ways replication is underrated:

Back and Forth on the Value of Replication From Stuart:

It’s a debate between @jdworkin.bsky.social and @stuartbuck.bsky.social on the value of replicating research!

The "Metascience 101" Podcast Series | IFP A nine-episode set of interviews that doubles as a crash course in the debates, issues, and ideas driving the modern metascience movement

PS - for the interested folks out there who are not PhD students or academics, this course isn’t designed for you. Instead, may I recommend the IFP metascience 101 podcast series! ifp.org/the-metascie...

Ready to apply? More details below. | Institute for Progress Our target audience is current or recent students who have completed at least one year of a PhD program in economics or related fields. Acceptance, however,

Apply by January 9, 2026 (this Friday!) for consideration. Be sure to share with the less online students you know. We welcome applications from anyone who has completed the equivalent of a first year economics PhD. ifp.org/economics-of...

11. Competition and Innovation, Mitsuru Igami
12. Patent Policy, Janet Freilich
13. Advice on Research and Careers, panel of Caleb Watney, Heidi Williams, Matt Clancy

6. Science and the Returns to R&D, Matt Clancy (me)
7. AI and Innovation, Kevin Bryan
8. Innovation Policy, John Van Reenen
9. Immigration and Innovation, Michael Clemens
10. Regulation, Heidi Williams

Schedule:
1. Introduction to the economics of Idea, Ben Jones
2. Idea-based models of economic growth, Chad Jones
3. The supply of Innovators, Ina Ganguli
4. Open Science as an Economic Institution, Pierre Azoulay
5. The Direction of Science, Kyle Myers

The course runs from early February through late March. Each week is an interactive zoom lecture from a different expert in the relevant field, plus a meeting with a small group of other students to discuss assigned readings.

Economics of Ideas, Science, and Innovation Online PhD Short Course | Institute for Progress

Are you a PhD student interested in the economics of innovation? The Economics of Ideas, Science, and Innovation Online short course, hosted by IFP, is back for the third time! ifp.org/economics-of...

Excited to share I'm joining @openphil.bsky.social under @mattsclancy.bsky.social as the housing program officer for the Abundance & Growth Fund!

Launching Niskanen's housing team has been a blast, & I'll remain a Senior Fellow with them

But I'm thrilled to start supporting housers everywhere!

Patent citations: Tracing spillovers or chasing shadows? Measuring how ideas move across firms and regions

🔎 Patent citations are everywhere in innovation research. But do they really trace how ideas spill over between inventors—or are we mistaking legal paperwork for knowledge flows? 🧐

New on #ThePatentist: www.thepatentist.com/p/patent-cit...

#patents #innovation #spillovers

Excellent retrospective approach to a timely prospective question.

Thanks Brian!

What if NIH had been 40% smaller? Replaying history with less NIH funding shows widespread impacts on drug-linked research

You can read the full paper here. It’s short and I think pretty transparent!

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

We find that drugs that cite at-risk research are, on average, no less likely to get priority reviews at FDA and do not have worse implied valuations by the stock market. In short, we don’t have reason to believe drugs linked to at-risk research are worse.

Are drugs linked to at-risk research worse? We look at two proxies for drug value: whether a drug gets priority review at the FDA, and stock market reactions when a drug patent is announced. Yes, very imperfect, but we think still worth looking at.

Finally, it’s less common, but in some cases, drugs directly acknowledge support from specific NIH grants in their patents. Only 40 drugs acknowledge NIH grant support, but of that group, 14 (35%) acknowledge support from a grant that is at-risk.

We consider other ways to link drugs with at-risk grants. For example, we find that 12% of drugs have more than a quarter of their patent-to-paper citations going to at-risk research. See the paper for some examples of specific drugs.

This doesn’t mean 51% of drugs wouldn’t exist if the NIH had been 40% smaller. Various caveats cut in different ways (see discussion in the online appendix). But we take this as evidence that the benefits of at-risk NIH research are wide and diffuse.

Most new drugs are protected by patents. We look at these patents to see if they cite research funded by at-risk grants. We find 51% of drugs have a patent that cites one or more articles funded by an at-risk grant.

Would anyone miss the research funded by these at-risk grants? To help assess that, we link these at-risk grants to drugs, focusing on all 557 FDA approvals for new molecular entities approved in the 21st century.

We have the real priority scores for all NIH grants made over 1980-2007. Since NIH mostly funds research by working down these priority scores until the budget runs out, we can identify the grants that would probably have been cut with a smaller budget.

New research by Pierre Azoulay, Danielle Li, Bhaven Sampat and me.

Earlier this year, the President’s budget proposed a 40% cut to the budget of the NIH. This motivated us to ask: what if the NIH had been 40% smaller?

If you're a thinker or do-er in the housing space and you haven't subscribed to @michaelwiebe.bsky.social's substack, you're doing it wrong!

It's a living urban econ lit review, inspired by @mattsclancy.bsky.social's New Things Under the Sun.

Great stuff! Here's an example ⤵️.

Nice article on returns to R&D in MIT Tech Review, ft. our own @mattsclancy.bsky.social
www.technologyreview.com/2025/09/17/...

Deadline to apply to these positions is today! Big opportunity to accelerate growth and progress in housing, energy, clinical trials, and more.

City Talks: Remote working and the future of cities - Centre for Cities Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Matt Clancy, Senior Programme Officer at Open Philanthropy and the creator of New Things Under the Sun, a

PODCAST | Remote working and the future of cities 🎙️

@andrewcities.bsky.social is joined by @mattsclancy.bsky.social to discuss hybrid working, productivity, cities and the future of work.

Listen to the pod 🎧👇

External Referrals - Open Philanthropy External Referrals

Apply by July 27 for full consideration! Know someone who might be a good fit? Earn $5k if your referral results in a hire: shorturl.at/S3N8j (4/4)

Senior Program Associate/Program Officer, Abundance and Growth (Specialist Track) Open Philanthropy is looking to hire up to four new team members to join our Abundance and Growth https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/abundance-and-growth/#:~:text=This%20fund%20supports%20efforts%...

There are two kinds of position posted, which we’re calling specialists (who will focus on 1-2 of the above areas) and generalists (who will have a broader portfolio). Full job descriptions below. (3/4)
Specialist: shorturl.at/yF9Hq
Generalist: shorturl.at/aWGnm

We’re interested in putting together a team with expertise across many different possible areas: housing policy, energy, infrastructure, state capacity, healthcare and clinical trials, economic dynamism, and more. (2/4)