Decomposing inequality in research funding by university-institute sub-group: A three-stage nested Theil index

作者：

Highlights：

• A three-stage nested Theil index is adopted for assessing the inequality in research funding.

• A university-institute hierarchical decomposition framework is constructed to decompose the overall inequality.

• The empirical analysis is conducted in China and based on the data from the NSFC between 2013 and 2017.

• The overall Theil index of research funding in China is 1.97, a value higher than in the United States but lower than in Japan.

• The inequality within institutions dominates and contributes 80% of the overall inequality.

摘要

•A three-stage nested Theil index is adopted for assessing the inequality in research funding.•A university-institute hierarchical decomposition framework is constructed to decompose the overall inequality.•The empirical analysis is conducted in China and based on the data from the NSFC between 2013 and 2017.•The overall Theil index of research funding in China is 1.97, a value higher than in the United States but lower than in Japan.•The inequality within institutions dominates and contributes 80% of the overall inequality.

论文关键词：Research funding,Inequality,Theil index,Structural decomposition,National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)

论文评审过程：Received 26 May 2018, Revised 23 October 2018, Accepted 23 October 2018, Available online 16 November 2018, Version of Record 16 November 2018.

论文官网地址：https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2018.10.007