Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
When and how should public agencies provide finance to the private sector in support of climate change mitigation and adaptation? We distinguish theoretically between pilot projects, whose main objective is to obtain information about the desirability of a climate-related project, and full projects, which are at-scale and are often quite risky. When a successful project has distinct private and public benefits, a publicly-funded subsidy may be warranted to induce a pilot project, a full project, or both. We draw on insights about the value of experimentation for entrepreneurship and raising private capital to derive insights about when subsidizing projects or pilots is more efficient. We find that pilot projects have many virtues not previously examined, and these often render them the optimal target of public subsidies to the private sector.