IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ulp/sbbeta/2003-12.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The ‘problem of problem choice’: A model of sequential knowledge production within scientific communities cientific communities

Author

Listed:
  • Nicolas Carayol
  • Jean-Michel Dalle

Abstract

In this paper we present an original model of sequential problem choice within scientific communities. Disciplinary knowledge is accumulated by solving problems emerging in a growing tree-like web of research areas. Knowledge production is sequential since the problems solved generate new problems that may be handled. The model allows us to study how the reward system in science influences the scientific community in stochastically selecting at each period its research agendas, and the long term resulting disciplines. We present some evidence on a decrease in the generation of new areas, a path dependency in specialization, and circumstances under which collapsing dynamics arise.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicolas Carayol & Jean-Michel Dalle, 2003. "The ‘problem of problem choice’: A model of sequential knowledge production within scientific communities cientific communities," Working Papers of BETA 2003-12, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2003-12
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://beta.u-strasbg.fr/WP/2003/2003-12.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Salter, Ammon J. & Martin, Ben R., 2001. "The economic benefits of publicly funded basic research: a critical review," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 509-532, March.
    2. Martin L. Weitzman, 1998. "Recombinant Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(2), pages 331-360.
    3. David, Paul A, 1985. "Clio and the Economics of QWERTY," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 332-337, May.
    4. Stephan, Paula E., 2010. "The Economics of Science," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 217-273, Elsevier.
    5. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    6. Nicolas Carayol, 2000. "Modeling creation vs. diffusion of structured knowledge," Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 3(01n04), pages 353-368.
    7. Dasgupta, Partha & Maskin, Eric, 1987. "The Simple Economics of Research Portfolios," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(387), pages 581-595, September.
    8. Kenneth Arrow, 1962. "Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for Invention," NBER Chapters, in: The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity: Economic and Social Factors, pages 609-626, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Franck Plouraboue & Alexandre Steyer & Jean-Benoit Zimmermann, 1998. "Learing Induced Criticality In Consumers' Adoption Pattern: A Neural Network Approach," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(1), pages 73-90.
    10. Alan P. Kirman, 1992. "Whom or What Does the Representative Individual Represent?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 117-136, Spring.
    11. Durlauf, S.N., 1997. "Rational Choice and the Study of Science," Working papers 9709r, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    12. Partha Dasgupta & Paul A. David, 1987. "Information Disclosure and the Economics of Science and Technology," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: George R. Feiwel (ed.), Arrow and the Ascent of Modern Economic Theory, chapter 16, pages 519-542, Palgrave Macmillan.
    13. Debackere, Koenraad & Rappa, Michael A., 1994. "Institutional variations in problem choice and persistence among scientists in an emerging field," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 425-441, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Azomahou, Théophile & Mishra, Tapas, 2008. "Age dynamics and economic growth: Revisiting the nexus in a nonparametric setting," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 67-71, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carayol, Nicolas & Dalle, Jean-Michel, 2007. "Sequential problem choice and the reward system in Open Science," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 167-191, June.
    2. Paula E. Stephan, 2004. "Robert K. Merton's perspective on priority and the provision of the public good knowledge," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 60(1), pages 81-87, May.
    3. Maria Rosaria Carillo & Erasmo Papagni & Fabian Capitanio, 2008. "Effects of social interactions on scientists' productivity," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 29(3), pages 263-279, June.
    4. Mario Coccia, 2006. "Economic and social studies of scientific research: nature and origins," CERIS Working Paper 200607, CNR-IRCrES Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth - Torino (TO) ITALY - former Institute for Economic Research on Firms and Growth - Moncalieri (TO) ITALY.
    5. Stephan, Paula E., 2010. "The Economics of Science," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 217-273, Elsevier.
    6. Boudreau, Kevin J. & Lakhani, Karim R., 2015. "“Open” disclosure of innovations, incentives and follow-on reuse: Theory on processes of cumulative innovation and a field experiment in computational biology," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 4-19.
    7. José Miguel Benavente & Gustavo Crespi & Alessandro Maffioli, 2007. "The Impact of National Research Funds: An Evaluation of the Chilean FONDECYT," OVE Working Papers 0307, Inter-American Development Bank, Office of Evaluation and Oversight (OVE).
    8. Charles Ayoubi & Boris Thurm, 2023. "Knowledge diffusion and morality: Why do we freely share valuable information with Strangers?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 75-99, January.
    9. Nicola Lacetera, 2003. "Incentives and spillovers in R&D activities: an agency-theoretic analysis of industry-university relations," Microeconomics 0312004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Paul David, 2001. "From Keeping Natures Secrets to the Institutionalization of Open Science," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _023, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    11. Thursby, Marie & Thursby, Jerry & Gupta-Mukherjee, Swasti, 2007. "Are there real effects of licensing on academic research? A life cycle view," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 63(4), pages 577-598, August.
    12. Sulin Ba & Jan Stallaert & Andrew B. Whinston, 2001. "Optimal Investment in Knowledge Within a Firm Using a Market Mechanism," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(9), pages 1203-1219, September.
    13. Leten, Bart & Kelchtermans, Stijn & Belderbos, Ren, 2010. "Internal Basic Research, External Basic Research and the Technological Performance of Pharmaceutical Firms," Working Papers 2010/12, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel, Faculteit Economie en Management.
    14. Langinier, Corinne & Moschini, GianCarlo, 2002. "Economics of Patents: An Overview, The," Staff General Research Papers Archive 2061, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    15. Maria Rosaria Carillo & Erasmo Papagni, 2004. "Academic Research, Social Interactions And Economic Growth," Working Papers 10_2004, D.E.S. (Department of Economic Studies), University of Naples "Parthenope", Italy.
    16. Iain M. Cockburn & Rebecca M. Henderson, 2001. "Publicly Funded Science and the Productivity of the Pharmaceutical Industry," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 1, pages 1-34, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Maria Rosaria Carillo & Erasmo Papagni, 2006. "Social Rewards in Science and Economic Growth," Discussion Papers 10_2006, D.E.S. (Department of Economic Studies), University of Naples "Parthenope", Italy.
    18. Mario COCCIA, 2018. "Evolution of the economics of science in the Twenty Century," Journal of Economics Library, KSP Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 65-84, March.
    19. Daniel Chudnovsky & Andrés López & Martín Rossi & Diego Ubfal, 2006. "Evaluating a Program of Public Funding of Scientific Activity. A Case Study of FONCYT in Argentina," OVE Working Papers 1206, Inter-American Development Bank, Office of Evaluation and Oversight (OVE).
    20. Alexy, Oliver & Reitzig, Markus, 2013. "Private–collective innovation, competition, and firms’ counterintuitive appropriation strategies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 895-913.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sequential Problem Choice; Stochastic Process; Tree; Graph Theory; Scientific Knowledge; Academics; Reward System;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
    • C63 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computational Techniques
    • H40 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - General
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2003-12. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bestrfr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.