Markets for Scientific Attribution / Joshua Gans, Fiona Murray.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gans, Joshua.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Murray, Fiona.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w20677.

NBER working paper series no. w20677

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2014.

Summary:

Formal attribution provides a means of recognizing scientific contributions as well as allocating scientific credit. This paper examines the processes by which attribution arises and its interaction with market assessments of the relative contributions of members of scientific teams and communities - a topic of interest organizational economics of science and in understanding scientific labor markets. We demonstrate that a pioneer or senior scientist's decision to co-author with a follower or junior scientist depends critically on market attributions as well as the timing of the co-authoring decision. This results in multiple equilibrium outcomes each with different implications for expected quality of research projects. However, we demonstrate that the Pareto efficient organisational regime is for the follower researcher to be granted co-authorship contingent on their own performance without any earlier pre-commitment to formal attribution. We then compare this with the alternative for the pioneer of publishing their contribution and being rewarded through citations to back to it. While in some equilibria (especially where co-authoring commitments are possible) there is no advantage to interim publication, in others this can increase expected research quality.

Notes:

Print version record

November 2014.