The Economics of Science: A Critical Realist Overview: Towards a Synthesis of Political Economy and Science and Technolo

Dramatic and controversial changes in the funding of science over the past two decades have stimulated a huge literature trying to set out an "economics of science". Whether broadly in favour or against these changes, the vast majority of these frameworks employ ahistorical analyses that cannot conceptualise, let alone address, the questions of "why have these changes occurred?" and "why now?"