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Curiosity-Driven Research and University Technology Transfer
The author suggests that it may be illuminating to view one goal of the basic research endeavor as the production of a curiosity-driven demand function for basic research that can serve as a proxy for the socially optimal (but unknowable) demand function for unpredictable research.
Link
http://entrepreneurship.eller.arizona.edu/docs/conferences/2005/colloquium/K_Strandburg.pdf