28 min
Steering Science with Prizes New Things Under the Sun
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- Social Sciences
New scientific research topics can sometimes face a chicken-and-egg problem. Professional success requires a critical mass of scholars to be active in a field, so that they can serve as open-minded peer reviewers and can validate (or at least cite!) new discoveries. Without that critical mass,undefined working on a new topic topic might be professionally risky. But if everyone thinks this way, then how do new research topics emerge; how do groups of people pick which topic to focus on?
One way is via coordinating mechanisms; a small number of universally recognized markers of promising research topics. This podcast looks at some evidence about how well prizes and other honors work at helping steer researchers towards specific research topics.
This is an audio read through of the (initial version of) "Steering Science with Prizes", published on New Things Under the Sun.
Articles mentioned:
Azoulay, Pierre, Toby Stuart, and Yanbo Wang. 2014. Matthew: Effect or Fable? Management Science 60(1): 92-109. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2013.1755
Reschke, Brian P., Pierre Azoulay, and Toby E. Stuart. 2018. Status Spillovers: The Effect of Status-conferring Prizes on the Allocation of Attention. Administrative Science Quarterly 63(4): 819-847. https://doi.org/10.1177/0001839217731997
Jin, Ching, Yifang Ma and Brian Uzzi. 2021. Scientific prizes and the extraordinary growth of scientific topics. Nature Communications 12: 5619. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25712-2
Azoulay, Pierre J., Michael Wahlen, and Ezra W. Zuckerman Sivan. 2019. Death of the Salesman but Not the Sales Force: How Interested Promotion Skews Scientific Valuation. American Journal of Sociology 125(3): 786-845. https://doi.org/10.1086/706800
Azoulay, Pierre, Christian Fons-Rosen, and Joshua S. Graff Zivin. 2019. Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time? American Economic Review 109(8): 2889-2920. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20161574
New scientific research topics can sometimes face a chicken-and-egg problem. Professional success requires a critical mass of scholars to be active in a field, so that they can serve as open-minded peer reviewers and can validate (or at least cite!) new discoveries. Without that critical mass,undefined working on a new topic topic might be professionally risky. But if everyone thinks this way, then how do new research topics emerge; how do groups of people pick which topic to focus on?
One way is via coordinating mechanisms; a small number of universally recognized markers of promising research topics. This podcast looks at some evidence about how well prizes and other honors work at helping steer researchers towards specific research topics.
This is an audio read through of the (initial version of) "Steering Science with Prizes", published on New Things Under the Sun.
Articles mentioned:
Azoulay, Pierre, Toby Stuart, and Yanbo Wang. 2014. Matthew: Effect or Fable? Management Science 60(1): 92-109. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2013.1755
Reschke, Brian P., Pierre Azoulay, and Toby E. Stuart. 2018. Status Spillovers: The Effect of Status-conferring Prizes on the Allocation of Attention. Administrative Science Quarterly 63(4): 819-847. https://doi.org/10.1177/0001839217731997
Jin, Ching, Yifang Ma and Brian Uzzi. 2021. Scientific prizes and the extraordinary growth of scientific topics. Nature Communications 12: 5619. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25712-2
Azoulay, Pierre J., Michael Wahlen, and Ezra W. Zuckerman Sivan. 2019. Death of the Salesman but Not the Sales Force: How Interested Promotion Skews Scientific Valuation. American Journal of Sociology 125(3): 786-845. https://doi.org/10.1086/706800
Azoulay, Pierre, Christian Fons-Rosen, and Joshua S. Graff Zivin. 2019. Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time? American Economic Review 109(8): 2889-2920. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20161574
28 min