Above a swamp: A theory of high-quality scientific production

Bralind Kiri, Nicola Lacetera and Lorenzo Zirulia

Research Policy, 2018, vol. 47, issue 5, 827-839

Abstract: We elaborate a model of the incentives of scientists to perform activities of control and criticism when these activities, just like the production of novel findings, are costly, and we study the strategic interaction between these incentives. We then use the model to assess policies meant to enhance the reliability of scientific knowledge. We show that a certain fraction of low-quality science characterizes all the equilibria in the basic model. In fact, the absence of detected low-quality research can be interpreted as the lack of verification activities and thus as a potential limitation to the reliability of a field. Incentivizing incremental research and verification activities improves the expected quality of research; this effect, however, is contrasted by the incentives to free ride on performing verification if many scientists are involved, and may discourage scientists to undertake new research in the first place. Finally, softening incentives to publish does not enhance quality, although it increases the fraction of detected low-quality papers. We also advance empirical predictions and discuss the insights for firms and investors as they “scout” the scientific landscape.

Keywords: Economics of science; Reliability of research; Research incentives; Science policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318300118
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Above a Swamp: A Theory of High-Quality Scientific Production (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:respol:v:47:y:2018:i:5:p:827-839

DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2018.01.011

Access Statistics for this article

Research Policy is currently edited by M. Bell, B. Martin, W.E. Steinmueller, A. Arora, M. Callon, M. Kenney, S. Kuhlmann, Keun Lee and F. Murray

More articles in Research Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().