IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/7805.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Evolving Standards for Academic Publishing: A q-r Theory

Author

Listed:
  • Glenn Ellison

Abstract

This paper develops a model of evolving standards for academic publishing. It is motivated by the increasing tendency of academic journals to require multiple revisions of articles and by changes in the content of articles. Papers are modeled as varying along two quality dimensions: q and r. The former represents the clarity and importance of a paper's main ideas and the latter its craftsmanship and polish. Observed trends are regarded as increases in r-quality. A static equilibrium model in which an arbitrary social norm determines how q and r are weighted is developed and used to discuss comparative statics explanations for increases in r. The paper then analyzes a learning model in which referees (who have a biased view of the importance of their own work) try to learn the social norm from observing how their own papers are treated and the decisions editors make on papers they referee. The model predicts that social norms will gradually but steadily evolve to increasingly emphasize r-quality.

Suggested Citation

  • Glenn Ellison, 2000. "Evolving Standards for Academic Publishing: A q-r Theory," NBER Working Papers 7805, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7805
    Note: IO PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7805.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rubinstein, Ariel, 1982. "Perfect Equilibrium in a Bargaining Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 97-109, January.
    2. Ellison, Glenn & Fudenberg, Drew, 2000. "Learning Purified Mixed Equilibria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 84-115, January.
    3. Glenn Ellison, 2002. "The Slowdown of the Economics Publishing Process," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(5), pages 947-993, October.
    4. Karni, Edi & Schmeidler, David, 1990. "Fixed Preferences and Changing Tastes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 262-267, May.
    5. Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 1995. "Design Innovation and Fashion Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(4), pages 771-792, September.
    6. Sen, Amartya, 1970. "The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(1), pages 152-157, Jan.-Feb..
    7. Sobel, Joel, 2000. "A Model of Declining Standards," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 41(2), pages 295-303, May.
    8. Matthew Rabin, 1998. "Psychology and Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 11-46, March.
    9. Sen, Amartya Kumar, 1970. "The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal," Scholarly Articles 3612779, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    10. Michael Spence, 1973. "Job Market Signaling," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 87(3), pages 355-374.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Jacobs Martin, 2016. "Accounting for Changing Tastes: Approaches to Explaining Unstable Individual Preferences," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 67(2), pages 121-183, August.
    2. Paul Weirich, 2011. "Exclusion from the social contract," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 10(2), pages 148-169, May.
    3. Etro, Federico, 2017. "Research in economics and game theory. A 70th anniversary," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 1-7.
    4. Michael Moehler, 2013. "Contractarian ethics and Harsanyi’s two justifications of utilitarianism," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 12(1), pages 24-47, February.
    5. Colander, David, 2009. "What Was “It” That Robbins Was Defining?," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(4), pages 437-448, December.
    6. Antoinette Baujard, 2016. "Utilitarianism and anti-utilitarianism," Chapters, in: Gilbert Faccarello & Heinz D. Kurz (ed.), Handbook on the History of Economic Analysis Volume III, chapter 40, pages 576-588, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Leo Katz & Alvaro Sandroni, 2020. "Limits on power and rationality," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 54(2), pages 507-521, March.
    8. Bernholz, Peter, 1997. "Property rights, contracts, cyclical social preferences and the Coase theorem: A synthesis," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 419-442, September.
    9. Azam, Jean-Paul, 2008. "Macroeconomic Agenda for Fiscal Policy and Aid Effectiveness in Post-Conflict Countries," IDEI Working Papers 539, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    10. Sam‐Ho Lee, 2023. "Theory of cultural capital: Productive use of an unproductive activity," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 25(2), pages 359-375, April.
    11. Teodor Sedlarski, 2019. "Political Economy Of Social Status - Economic And Socio-Psychological Effects Of Status Competition On 'Winner-Take-All' Markets," Yearbook of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Sofia University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski - Bulgaria, vol. 17(1), pages 211-277, June.
    12. Jean Lainé & Ali Ozkes & Remzi Sanver, 2016. "Hyper-stable social welfare functions," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 46(1), pages 157-182, January.
    13. Ngo Long & Vincent Martinet, 2018. "Combining rights and welfarism: a new approach to intertemporal evaluation of social alternatives," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 50(1), pages 35-64, January.
    14. Corneo, Giacomo & Jeanne, Olivier, 1999. "Segmented communication and fashionable behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 371-385, July.
    15. Bezalel Peleg, 2002. "Complete Characterization of Acceptable Game Forms by Effectivity Functions," Discussion Paper Series dp283, The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
    16. John A. Weymark, 2017. "Conundrums for nonconsequentialists," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 48(2), pages 269-294, February.
    17. Clemens, Michael A. & Pritchett, Lant, 2019. "The new economic case for migration restrictions: An assessment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 153-164.
    18. Bezalel Peleg & Ron Holzman, 2017. "Representations of Political Power Structures by Strategically Stable Game Forms: A Survey," Games, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-17, October.
    19. Fritz W. Scharpf, 1991. "Games Real Actors Could Play: The Challenge of Complexity," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 3(3), pages 277-304, July.
    20. J González-Pachón & C Romero, 2006. "An analytical framework for aggregating multiattribute utility functions," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 57(10), pages 1241-1247, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics
    • D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:7805. 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/nberrus.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.