  We study how delays in NIH grant funding affect the career outcomes of
research personnel. Using comprehensive earnings and tax records linked to
university transaction data along with a difference-in-differences design, we
find that a funding interruption of more than 30 days has a substantial effect
on job placements for personnel who work in labs with a single NIH R01 research
grant, including a 3 percentage point (40%) increase in the probability of not
working in the US. Incorporating information from the full 2020 Decennial
Census and data on publications, we find that about half of those induced into
nonemployment appear to permanently leave the US and are 90% less likely to
publish in a given year, with even larger impacts for trainees (postdocs and
graduate students). Among personnel who continue to work in the US, we find
that interrupted personnel earn 20% less than their continuously-funded peers,
with the largest declines concentrated among trainees and other non-faculty
personnel (such as staff and undergraduates). Overall, funding delays account
for about 5% of US nonemployment in our data, indicating that they have a
meaningful effect on the scientific labor force at the national level.
