Year
2009
Abstract
This paper investigates the production of research in business and economics. A scholar’s reward is positively related to the quantity and quality of research. In turn, the quality of a paper depends on the scholar’s ability to internalize new ideas and the overall quality of external research. The individual scholar is subject to a trade-off between writing more papers or reading in order to take in new ideas. In the Nash symmetric equilibrium, the quantity and quality of published papers are jointly determined. Under reasonable assumptions about the research production process, in equilibrium researchers write too many papers of too low a quality compared to the cooperative outcome.
BESANCENOT, D., HUYNH, K. et VRANCEANU, R. (2009). The ‘Read or Write’ Dilemma in Academic Production: A Transatlantic Perspective. American Economist, 53(1), pp. 75-85.