Periodic Reporting for period 2 - KnowEvoIAndIdeasMkt (The Evolution of Knowledge in the Market for Ideas)
Reporting period: 2024-03-01 to 2025-02-28
The Marie Curie Fellowship aims to address three critical issues in the scientific community:
**1. Science Funding:** We construct a flexible model of science funding to evaluate potential policy shifts and their outcomes. The model will explore whether cooperation or competition among diverse researchers should be encouraged, and which provides larger incentives for novel solutions: grants (ex ante cost reductions) or prizes (ex post rewards). The model will also examine how these answers depend on the degree of competition.
**2. Publishing Null Results:** We aim to quantify the influence of 'Null Results' on the path of knowledge evolution. It will derive a theory to predict how informative reported null results are in equilibrium and whether private knowledge of a null result can contribute to a researcher’s agenda, even if null results cannot be communicated.
**3. Competition and Dynamics in the Market for Ideas:** We explore how competition among researchers can lead to both agglomeration of findings around a 'hot topic' and dispersion due to selecting uncontested niche fields. It will derive a theory to predict whether knowledge is obtained quicker through intense competition on narrow fields or by creating uncontested islands, and whether competition on originality should be incentivized to push the frontier or close known gaps in the literature.
These objectives aim to provide valuable insights into the dynamics of scientific research and contribute to the development of effective policies for science funding and knowledge dissemination.
**1. Science Funding:** We construct a flexible model of science funding to evaluate potential policy shifts and their outcomes. The model will explore whether cooperation or competition among diverse researchers should be encouraged, and which provides larger incentives for novel solutions: grants (ex ante cost reductions) or prizes (ex post rewards). The model will also examine how these answers depend on the degree of competition.
**2. Publishing Null Results:** We aim to quantify the influence of 'Null Results' on the path of knowledge evolution. It will derive a theory to predict how informative reported null results are in equilibrium and whether private knowledge of a null result can contribute to a researcher’s agenda, even if null results cannot be communicated.
**3. Competition and Dynamics in the Market for Ideas:** We explore how competition among researchers can lead to both agglomeration of findings around a 'hot topic' and dispersion due to selecting uncontested niche fields. It will derive a theory to predict whether knowledge is obtained quicker through intense competition on narrow fields or by creating uncontested islands, and whether competition on originality should be incentivized to push the frontier or close known gaps in the literature.
These objectives aim to provide valuable insights into the dynamics of scientific research and contribute to the development of effective policies for science funding and knowledge dissemination.
We provide a summary of the work carried out along the three lines of researcher
**1. Science Funding:** Our paper "A Quest for Knowledge" has been accepted for publication at Econometrica summarizing our scientific work in this area. A blog post on it has been written by me on uc3nomics.
**2. Publishing Null Results:** Some of the results are included in "A Quest for Knowledge." The remaining results will be an excellent starting point for future work (by me or others)
**3. Competition and Dynamics in the Market for Ideas:** A paper summarizing our scientific results so far has received a revise and resubmit at the Review of Economic Studies.
**1. Science Funding:** Our paper "A Quest for Knowledge" has been accepted for publication at Econometrica summarizing our scientific work in this area. A blog post on it has been written by me on uc3nomics.
**2. Publishing Null Results:** Some of the results are included in "A Quest for Knowledge." The remaining results will be an excellent starting point for future work (by me or others)
**3. Competition and Dynamics in the Market for Ideas:** A paper summarizing our scientific results so far has received a revise and resubmit at the Review of Economic Studies.
As in previous sections we group results by the initial objectives.
**1. Science Funding:** We provide a flexible model of the evolution of sciences that serves as a building block in a funders objective by telling her (a) how scientists choose questions, (b) how much they invest into those questions, and (c) how they inspire future researchers. We show that a combination of a static cost friction and a dynamic externality lead to suboptimal pace if scientists are purely funded by cost reductions. Instead, ex-post rewards such as prizes are a key element to incentivize beyond statically optimal, inspiring research. However, they work best in combination with cost reductions. We show that having _occasional_ moonshots (*not marsshot*) are best to inspire generations of "normal scientists". We have also obtained first results on providing feedback to scientists, showing that, when costly, it is best to give feedback on early, and when the researcher had had a fundamental misunderstanding. With established scientists, feedback has less effect on decision making and therefore can be left out.
**2. Publishing Null Results:** We can show that the failure to recognize non-findings censors the belief of researchers and leads decision makers to become pro-active when prudence would be best. However, they often do not hinder the progress of sciences, as researchers would shy away from opening up endeavors that previous generations have failed on despite trying hard. It turns out that to overcome these blockades (which is beneficial for society) additional incentives potentially from funding institutions are needed.
** 3. Competition and Dynamics in the Market for Ideas:** Our first results here indicate that when future demand of the outcome of an idea is uncertain and there is a need to potentially refine ideas later on, there is a strong first-mover advantage in which the first-mover takes a moderate step leaving following competitors the avant-garde market.
**1. Science Funding:** We provide a flexible model of the evolution of sciences that serves as a building block in a funders objective by telling her (a) how scientists choose questions, (b) how much they invest into those questions, and (c) how they inspire future researchers. We show that a combination of a static cost friction and a dynamic externality lead to suboptimal pace if scientists are purely funded by cost reductions. Instead, ex-post rewards such as prizes are a key element to incentivize beyond statically optimal, inspiring research. However, they work best in combination with cost reductions. We show that having _occasional_ moonshots (*not marsshot*) are best to inspire generations of "normal scientists". We have also obtained first results on providing feedback to scientists, showing that, when costly, it is best to give feedback on early, and when the researcher had had a fundamental misunderstanding. With established scientists, feedback has less effect on decision making and therefore can be left out.
**2. Publishing Null Results:** We can show that the failure to recognize non-findings censors the belief of researchers and leads decision makers to become pro-active when prudence would be best. However, they often do not hinder the progress of sciences, as researchers would shy away from opening up endeavors that previous generations have failed on despite trying hard. It turns out that to overcome these blockades (which is beneficial for society) additional incentives potentially from funding institutions are needed.
** 3. Competition and Dynamics in the Market for Ideas:** Our first results here indicate that when future demand of the outcome of an idea is uncertain and there is a need to potentially refine ideas later on, there is a strong first-mover advantage in which the first-mover takes a moderate step leaving following competitors the avant-garde market.