How the same organizational structures can arise across seemingly unrelated domains of human activities: the example of academic publishing and stock market

Here we show how the same organizational structures can arise across seemingly unrelated domains of human activities. To this end we examine the example of academic journals publishing and stock market. A number of academic journals with low-prestige and limited resources may compete in the same selection process of high-quality manuscripts. This shared selection process is performed by an independent editorial committee. A journal editor is interested in maximizing the growth rate of journal wealth based on an optimal strategy of allocations on candidate manuscripts. Here we introduce the system of optimality equations for the maximization problem. Next, we find an optimal set of manuscripts to allocate on, as well as the optimal allocation fractions. It can be easily implemented by a simple algorithm for use at the shared selection process of high-quality manuscripts. The proposed structure presents a loose network of economic transactions, i.e. journal editors compete on somewhat like manuscript market by making stakes and risking their money. We provide a publicly available suite of web-based tools designed to the computation of the optimal set of manuscripts and the respective allocation fractions. Examples of the performance of the Web application for allocating journal resources are presented for two different selection processes of high-quality manuscripts.