Researcher's Dilemma

Catherine Bobtcheff, Jérôme Bolte and Thomas Mariotti

No 13-377, TSE Working Papers from Toulouse School of Economics (TSE)

Abstract: We model academic competition as a game in which researchers ¯ght for priority. Researchers privately experience breakthroughs and decide how long to let their ideas mature before making them public, thereby establishing priority. In a two-researcher, symmetric environment, the resulting preemption game has a unique equilibrium. We study how the shape of the breakthrough distribution affects equilibrium maturation delays. Making researchers better at discovering new ideas or at developing them has contrasted effects on the quality of research outputs. Finally, when researchers have different innovative abilities, speed of discovery and maturation of ideas are positively correlated in equilibrium.

Keywords: Academic Competition; Preemption Games; Private Information (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C73 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-02, Revised 2015-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cta, nep-gth, nep-hpe, nep-hrm and nep-sog
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Researcher’s Dilemma (2017)
Working Paper: Researcher's Dilemma (2015)
Working Paper: Researcher's Dilemma (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tse:wpaper:26783

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