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: Caroline Carr, 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 $5,000.

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 $2,500 of a grant can be used to pay subjects in experiments. No more than $500 can be allocated to miscellaneous expenses. No funds can be spent on computer hardware or software.

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 $5,000 lifetime limit of support under the Behavioral Economics Program. All applicants must be nominated by their faculty advisor. This nominating letter can be submitted with the proposal or sent separately.

Doctoral students should submit official graduate transcripts with their application and, if support for dissertation research is requested, a letter of recommendation from the thesis supervisor should also be included. All applicants should submit an updated CV.

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. Since the amounts of money involved are small, explanations will not be given when grants are denied, and information will not be given on revisions that might make a proposal acceptable.

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.