Monetary incentives and social ties in academic publications

Abstract

Monetary incentives underlie academic publications, especially in countries where many researchers' incomes are performance-based. Evidence has documented that social ties improve the chances of publication in journals, whereas building and maintaining social ties require resources. We develop a simple model to investigate the consequences of monetary investment on the probability of publication through social ties. The results indicate that monetary incentive can stimulate researchers to make more efforts regarding publication. Through social ties, monetary investment in the process of academic publication distorts researchers' incentive. Monetary investment through social ties improves the probability of publication and then disables the signaling function of publication in terms of researchers’ abilities. Depending on the contribution of different types of researchers to society and the ability of the latter to differentiate the quality of publication in journals, the improvement in publication probability by monetary investment through social ties may improve or reduce the level of social welfare.