Small Grants Program in Behavioral Economics

The Russell Sage Behavioral Economics Roundtable supports a small grants research program to support high quality research in behavioral economics and to encourage young investigators to enter this developing field. There are no limitations on the disciplinary background of the principal investigator, and the proposed research may address any economic topic. Interdisciplinary efforts are welcome. Appropriate projects will demonstrate explicit use of psychological concepts in the motivation of the design and the preparation of the results. This program will be administered under the auspices of the Behavioral Economics Roundtable, a group of researchers in behavioral economics formed by the Russell Sage Foundation to encourage inter-disciplinary research in behavioral economics.

Proposal
Proposals should be submitted to the Small Grants Program in Behavioral Economics, attn: Kelly Westphalen, Russell Sage Foundation, 112 East 64th Street, New York, NY 10065. Please note that there is no deadline for the Small Grants Program in Behavioral Economics; applications are accepted on a rolling basis.

The maximum length for the text of a proposal is 1,000 words, excluding budget and bibliography. Proposals should outline briefly the basic rationale of the research, the question under study and the methods and analytic approach to be employed.

Budget
The maximum budget is $7,500 (although on very rare occasions larger awards may be made for exceptional proposals).

Representative categories of expenditure include acquisition of data, the purchase of data sets, research assistance (but not including payment to any researchers who will be co-authors on the project), payment to subjects in experiments, miscellaneous expenses (such as xeroxing, telephone, postage). No funds will be granted for researchers' time.

A budget that appears to be excessive will be grounds for rejecting a proposal.

No more than $500 can be allocated to miscellaneous expenses. No funds can be spent on computer hardware or software.

No overhead or indirect costs will be paid on these awards.

Eligibility
Applicants must be advanced doctoral students or junior (non-tenured) faculty members who have been out of graduate school for two or fewer years. There is a $7,500 lifetime limit of support under the Behavioral Economics Program.

Doctoral students should submit official graduate transcripts with their application, and a letter of recommendation from their faculty advisor should also be included. All applicants should submit an updated CV and obtain a letter from their home institution indicating willingness to act as a fiscal agent.

Members of the Behavioral Economics Roundtable will not be eligible for grants directly. Their students and/or collaborators may receive grants, and members can be co-authors of papers produced under grants.

Grants will be accepted or rejected with no possibility of subsequent negotiation.

Application Components
Proposal
Budget
Applicant CV(s)
Fiscal agent letter
Letter of recommendation from faculty advisor (doctoral students only)
Official transcripts (doctoral students only)

Administrative Procedures
The award will be administered by the grantee's university which will act as the fiscal agent. The Russell Sage Foundation will pay the entire award in advance.

At the conclusion of the grant period, investigators must send a final substantive report of up to 1,000 words to the Foundation along with an official financial report from the fiscal agent and copies of all research papers supported by the award.