Science in the mist: A model of asymmetric information for the research market

Abstract This paper aims to describe the process underlying the submission and acceptance of high quality papers to top journals via a model of asymmetric information. Researchers have the relevant information, namely the probability that the research paper will be recognised by the scientific community. The model predicts many empirical facts of modern publishing systems: top journals receive too many submissions; few published papers are recognised by the scientific community; risky papers benefit from imperfect information, and groundbreaking papers are more likely to be published than in the case of perfect information; the distribution of papers can be skewed to the right. An extension of the model that considers the reputation of researchers shows that researchers with low reputation may be precluded from publishing in top journals, so the scientific system may be against innovation fostered by young scholars. Monte Carlo simulations and real data are used to substantiate the paper's findings. Policy implications and Pareto efficiency are also discussed.