We examine the impact of the Texas Research Incentive Program (TRIP), a state policy that offers matching funds to incentivize private-sector donations to certain public universities. We use a national dataset and employ a generalized difference-in-differences approach with matching procedures to estimate the treatment effect of TRIP on revenues at eligible institutions. Results show that TRIP is associated with increases in revenue from private gifts and state grants/contracts, which suggests that policymakers can leverage public investment to incentivize private donations. We do not detect a statistically significant relationship between TRIP and endowments, so donations are likely used for short-term funding and do not create long-term dividends. We consider potential social consequences of selecting certain universities to benefit from incentive policies.

我们研究了德克萨斯州研究激励计划（TRIP）的影响，该政策是一项州政策，提供相匹配的资金来激励私营部门向某些公立大学的捐赠。我们使用国家数据集，并采用具有匹配程序的广义差异法来估计TRIP对合格机构收入的治疗效果。结果表明，与贸易有关的知识产权与私人礼物和国家赠款/合同的收入增加有关，这表明政策制定者可以利用公共投资来激励私人捐款。我们没有发现TRIP与捐赠之间的统计显着性关系，因此捐赠很可能用于短期资金，不会产生长期股息。