Paradigm depletion, knowledge production and research effort

This paper deals with two elements of Thomas Kuhn (1962) ideas regarding paradigm: Depletion and resiliency. The possibility of paradigm depletion taking resilience into account, given the hierarchy among scientists, is modeled as a Stackelberg differential game between editors [leaders] and authors [followers]. A number of results emerge from the model: i) Paradigm depletion can be optimal; ii) The optimal editor’s shadow price of potential knowledge must be non-positive, if it is positive, the editor is just a keeper of the orthodoxy rather than a scientist; iii) Editor’s and/or researcher’s impatience is always bad for science; iv) In equilibrium editor’s behavior does not matter for optimal research effort, while only editor’s behavior matter for the paradigm.