On the Matthew effect in research careers

The observation that a socioeconomic agent with a high reputation gets a disproportionately higher recognition for the same work than an agent with lower reputation is typical in career development and wealth. This phenomenon, which is known as Matthew effect in the literature, leads to an increasing inequality over time. The present paper employs an optimal control model to study the implications of the Matthew effect on the optimal efforts of a scientist into reputation.

We essentially obtain two different solutions. In case the scientist is not so talented, his or her academic career is doomed to fail. The scientist’s reputation decreases over time and after some time the scientific career stops. For a more gifted scientist the optimal solution is history-dependent. Still for a low level of the initial reputation, scientific life stops at some point, but otherwise a fruitful scientific career is awaiting.