When Agents Become Principals:

This paper argues that the publishing of academic research by and large belongs to the public sector domain, and that the scientific knowledge stemming from the public sectors is important for innovation. In 2004 the Norwegian Association of Higher Education Institutions (UHR) introduced an incentive based system in which academic institutions receive economic compensation as a function or their employees’ publication rate in academic journals. Outlets are classified into level 1 or 2, but it is not always clear-cut how to classify a journal at either level. I therefore propose that the number of Norwegian scholars contributing in a given journal may increase the propensity of classifying the outlet at level 2. This flux regarding the classification may hamper the quality of research, which can have secondary consequences for production of knowledge and innovation. Furthermore, if scholars from different institutions contribute to the same paper, the UHR has decided that the funding is to be distributed evenly between the institutions as a function of the number of authors affiliated with each institution. This may limit coauthorship.