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Tactical Refereeing and Signaling by Publishing

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Abstract

A peer review is used ubiquitously in hiring, promotional, and evaluation decisions, within academia and beyond. It is usually conducted to allocate limited resources, such as the budget of a funder or the pages of a journal. With limited capacity, a peer review may lead to negatively biased evaluations precisely because approving a peer s worthy project lowers the chance that a referee s own project will be approved. I show that limited capacity is inconsistent with a hypothesis that the decision-maker s policy is to stimulate efforts, and I discuss possible decision-maker motivations that could lead to a limited capacity policy.

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  • Popov, Sergey V, 2022. "Tactical Refereeing and Signaling by Publishing," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2022/14, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2022/14
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    refereeing; peer review;

    JEL classification:

    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory

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