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Ballandonne Matthieu – University of Angers – Working PaperJuly 2011 version 2

New Economics of Science, Economics of Scientific Knowledge and Sociology of Science: the Case of Paul David.

“Definitions are the soul of law, but not, we venture, the gist of the economics of science”

(Mirowski 2011, 142);

“There are almost as many definitions of the ‘economics of science’ as there are practitioners” (Tyfield, 2011 forthcoming).

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Introduction

The development of a social epistemology, controversies about recent scientific advances (such as the human genome project) and the evolution of the organizational structure of universities have generated a renewed interest for social studies of science, among which the economics of science.

For a little more than twenty years, the terminology used in the economics of science has changed significantly with the development of expressions such as "the new economics of science" (NES) and "the economics of scientific knowledge" (ESK). This article seeks to shed a light on the use of these different terminologies by taking examples from Paul David’s work. We have chosen this author not only because he is the co-author of the seminal article of the new economics of science (Dasgupta & David 1994) but also because, a few years later (David 1998), he wrote an article regarded as belonging to the field of the economics of scientific knowledge (Bonilla 2005). David is in our opinion the ideal candidate to show the definitional ambiguities now going through the field of the economics of science, especially since he considers his article written in 1998 as making part of the "new economics of science”. Our study is further motivated by the fact that, to our knowledge, no other articles have yet focused on the economic methodology of Paul David.

Due to the polysemous nature of the terminology used to describe Paul David’s research, several interpretations can be made. One could consider that the economics of scientific knowledge is the same field as the new economics of science (Hands 2001) and in this case the problem is purely discharged; or one could instead consider that the analysis provided by Bonilla is simply incorrect; or that it is David himself who has failed to perceive the special characteristics of his 1998 article compared to the one published in 1994. We reject each of these three solutions to defend a more subtle thesis: if the object of study of David’s 1998 article corresponds to that of ESK as interpreted, the sociological foundations of

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this paper are those of the new economics of science, namely the Mertonian sociology of science. Hence, whereas the object of David’s study changed between these two articles, from institutional questions to epistemic ones, his sociological background remained the same. We show this in three main parts.

A first section focuses on NES with the study of the seminal paper by Dasgupta and David (1994). This allows us to propose a definition of NES that will be used to compare it with ESK in the next sections.

A second part studies and discusses the main definitions of ESK found in the literature (Hands 1994, 1997, 2001; Shi 2001; Bonilla 2005). This enables us to propose our own definition of ESK, and to take David’s 1998 paper as an example of it.

A third step is dedicated to examine the sociological background of the two David’s papers (1994; 1998). We analyse David’s use of the Mertonian framework in 1994 and in 1998, and his rejection of the sociology of scientific knowledge in this later article.

In conclusion, we show what could be the broader consequences for ESK.

New Economics of Science

We can nowadays identify three main ‘types’ of economics of science: the “old economics of science” (ES), the “new economics of science” (NES), and the “economics of scientific knowledge” (ESK). In this first part, we will briefly deal with the old economics of science and focus deeper on NES. The study of the seminal paper by Dasgupta and David (1994) will allow us to propose a definition of NES.

(Very) Short Indications on the Old Economics of Science.

The first type of economics of science appeared in the sixties with the publication of the seminal articles of Arrow (1962) and Nelson (1959)1. Published during the Cold War when scientific competition took the foreground (Leslie 1993), these papers tried to measure the impact of scientific research on growth, and sought solutions to the problem of production of scientific knowledge understood as a public good and thus under-produced if only left to market forces (Stephan 1996). For Sent (1999, 101): “This so-called old economics of science consisted of an institutional approach to science, an argument that science is a market, a unity-of-science approach and a clear definition of the organizational framework of scientific research”. Economic representation of the process of scientific production is at this time the "linear model" in which public funds are invested into basic research which leads to commercializable goods and, in fine, to social benefits (Godin 2006; Mirowski 2011).

If the definition proposed by Sent is a good summary of the oldest approach, we can discuss the claim that it was an “institutional” one. 1 We do not mean that there was not economics study of science before this time. Indeed, one of the precursors is the American pragmatist philosopher C. S. Peirce with his “Note on the Theory of the Economy of Research” (1879) (see Rescher 1976; Wible 1994a, 2008).

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Indeed, it is important to note that for this old type of economics study of science, norms and organizational forms governing the activity of scientists (institutions) are regarded as exogenous and not belonging to the scope of the economic analysis but to the sociological one. In the next section, we will see that it is no longer the case in the new economics of science. The New Economics of Science by Dasgupta and David (1994).

The latest developments in the economics of science are most often attributed to the new economics of science (NES) and its seminal paper "Toward a New Economics of Science" by Dasgupta & David published in Research Policy in 19942. Before going further in the characterization of the relationship between NES and ESK, we must first provide a definition of NES. For Sent (1999, 102): « This so-called new economics of science consists of a contextual approach to science, an argument that science cannot be commodified, a disunity-of-science approach and a questioning of the units of the organization in science ». If this definition allows us to take the measure of the gap between the old economics of science and the new economics of science broadly speaking, we will here provide a definition of NES as reflected by the seminal paper of Dasgupta and David (1994). This will allow us to see what David himself means by the expression of NES.

For Dasgupta and David, NES is a way to remedy the shortcomings of the old economics of science by providing a useful analytical framework for empirical research and public policy debates. The authors then identify three main areas questionned by NES: those of the production, the dissemination and the use of knowledge. Crucially, NES seeks to answer these questions by taking into account, at the difference of the old economics of science, the uncertainty of the knowledge production process, the incompleteness and asymmetric nature of information, and the role of institutions:

2 A first distinction between NES and ESK appears: while NES gets an article that institutionalizes and lays the groundwork for its research program, ESK does not. Some institutional elements are important to understand why the term "new economics of science" is more widespread among the economic profession than "economics of scientific knowledge". We can take the example of the “Conference on the Need for a New Economics of Science”, hold at the University of Notre Dame in 1997 and note the ambiguous assimilation between NES and ESK in its call for papers (http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg11948.html - emphasis added):

« The different perspectives on (quasi-)economics of science and/or scientific knowledge can be organized in terms of old and new economics of science. Old economics of science consists of an institutional approach to science, an argument that science is a market, a unity-of science approach, and a clear definition of the organizational framework of scientific research. New economics of science consists of a contextual approach to science, an argument that science cannot be commodified, a disunity-of science approach, and a questioning of the units of organization in science ».

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« It makes use of insights from the theory of games of incomplete information to synthesize the classic approach of Arrow and Nelson in examining the implications of the characteristics of information for allocative efficiency in research activities, on the one hand, with the functionalist analysis of institutional structures, reward systems and behavioural norms of ‘open science’ communities-associates with the sociology of science in the tradition of Merton-on the other ». (Dasgutpta & David 1994, 487).

« […] the new economics of science has the two-fold ambition of (1) exposing the underlying logic of the salient institutions of science, and (2) examining implications of those differentiating institutional features fro the efficiency of economic resource allocation within this particular sphere of human action. » (ibid, 492).

To sum up, and following the seminal work of Dasgupta and David, we can say that NES corresponds to:

The economic study of production, dissemination and use of knowledge, using the tools of modern economic theory (asymmetric information, game theory, dynamic processes etc.) and relying on the results of the traditional economics of science and functionalist sociology of science in the tradition of Merton.

In what follows, we will stick to this working definition of NES, in order to be able to compare it with David’s 1998 paper. In the next section, we review the main definitions of ESK found in the literature and propose our own. This will allow us to argue that David’s 1998 work better fits ESK.

Economics of Scientific Knowledge

ESK has not yet been the object of a seminal article and thus does not possess a stabilized definition. The difficulty to define ESK is such that Bonilla considers that "it is very difficult, if not impossible, to give a comprehensive definition of the ESK” (2005, 2). Moreover, the literature using this expression is thin, and the question of his status is an open one (e.g. Is it a field? A research program? Is it still economics?). In the two next sections, we first discuss and propose a working definition of ESK, and we show why David’s 1998 work can enter this category.

Searching For a Definition

Before proposing a definition of ESK, we begin here by examining the different definitions of ESK found in the literature in chronological order (Hands 1994, 1997, 2001; Shi 2001; Bonilla 2005). Wade Hands is the first one to have proposed an analysis of what ESK could be. In 1994 he wrote:

« If we mirror the distinction between the sociology of science and the sociology of scientific knowledge, then the economics of science would be the application of economic theory, or ideas found in economic theory, to explaining the behaviour of scientists and/or the intellectual

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output of the scientific community. That is, given the goals of the individual scientists or those of the scientific community (for example, the ‘pursuit of truth’) the economics of science might be used to explain the behaviour of those in the scientific community or to make recommendations about how those goals might be achieved in a more efficient manner. In this way the economics of science would relate to science in precisely the way that microeconomics has typically related to the firms in the market economy. […] On the other hand, the economics of scientific knowledge (ESK) would involve economics in a philosophically more fundamental way. The ESK would involve economics, or at least metaphors derived from economics, in the actual characterization of scientific knowledge – that is, economics would be involved fundamentally in the epistemological discourse regarding the nature of scientific knowledge. Like the SSK argues that scientific knowledge comes to be constructed out of a social process, the ESK would argue that scientific knowledge comes to be constructed out of an economic process ». (Hands 1994, 87- last emphasis added).

The problem here is the distinction made between social and economic factors. What if we reasonably assume that economic processes are a subset of social processes in the broad sense?

In 1997, Hands proposes the same kind of definition:

« I will follow the earlier distinction between the sociology of science and the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) with the distinction between the economics of science and the economics of scientific knowledge (ESK): where ESK concerns the content of scientific knowledge as well as the social-economic factors affecting its growth and development. The caveat in note 5 holds here as well (perhaps more so) » (Hands 1997, 725 f. n. 12 – emphasis added).

Note first that, this time, economic factors are no longer opposed to social ones but are part of “social-economic factors”. Secondly, Hands adds the “growth and development of scientific knowledge” to his definition, and that is why he is led to implicitly mix ESK and NES. We consider below the caveat Hands refers to:

« While it is useful to maintain the distinction between sociology of science and SSK (Hands 1994a), I must also admit that the distinction is very crisp and can be difficult to apply in particular cases. One problem is that these attitudes fall along a continuum and often do not fit into either one of these two distinct categories, and an other problem is that there is frequently a lot of slippage within a particular text or between an author’s works at two different points in time. As I think, it is a useful but imperfect, conceptual tool ». (Hands ibid, f. n. 5).

Four remarks regarding the two above citations can be made.

First, Hands only refers to two types of economics of science and implicitly considers here that NES is the same thing that ESK or the ES, since NES is not mentioned.

Secondly, and this is an important point, saying that ESK is at the ES what SSK is at the SS doesn’t say anything about the use of SSK and/or the SS made by ESK or the ES.

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Thirdly, we also have to point out that Hands considers that SS and SSK are not so different. If true, the opposition between NES and ESK could not reflect the opposition between the SS and SSK, since they are considered to be the same thing: we would thus have only one type of economics of science and not even two. Not only is NES implicitly thought to be the same as ESK but while examining the consistency of Hand’s position we thus also have to say that ES equals NES equals ESK.

Finally, even if we could think that Hands actually considers ES to be different from NES, his argument would be ambiguous. How could the difference between the SS and SSK reflects the difference between the ES and NES (= ESK) (as it is said in the above citation) whereas the sociological background of Dasgupta and David (NES) is the traditional sociology of science (SS) and that the traditional economics of science doesn’t make any use of sociological analysis?

In Reflection Without Rules (2001), Hands is this time explicit about his assimilation of ESK and NES:

« […] the economics profession is also engaged in in the production of its own version(s) of the ESK: the so-called new economics of science. The economists actually involved in the research employ the adjective “new” primarily to differentiate their own theoretical approches – which involve game theory, bounded rationality, transaction costs, and more attention to institutions – from the earlier economics of science, but this literature is also “new” in another sens as well; it is much more explicit about normative epistemology and the cognitive evauation of the various sceintific institutions it considers. In other word, it is ESK and not just the (old) economics of science». (Hands 2001, 373 – last emphasis added).

This definition, which equates NES and ESK is actually common in the literature. We can take the example of Downes, whose paper title is "Agents and Norms in the New Economics of Science", but whose first line is: "The Economics of science I talk about in this article is an economics of scientific knowledge: the attempt to account for the development of scientific knowledge by using economic models" (Downes 2001, 224 - emphasis added). Still in Reflection, Hands completes this thesis by arguing that the ES is to ESK what microeconomics is to welfare economics. The economics of scientific knowledge would thus be a normative kind of economics of science:

« […] ESK, like SSK, would address the question of whether the epistemologically right stuff is being produced in the economy of science; ESK mixes economics and normative science theory. The distinction between the economics of science and ESK mirrors not only the difference between sociology of science and SSK, but also the traditional distinction between microeconomics and welfare economics. Microeconomics, it is usually argued, predicts and/or explains the behavior of economic agents, whereas welfare economics focuses on the question of whether the social configuration produced as a result of the actions of these agents is “optimal” or “efficient”. Now, the standards for efficiency in welfare economics have traditionally been rooted in the utility of the agents themselves – and thus, is grounded (at least at its core) in ethics, not epistemology – but it is a relatively short jump to ESK,

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where the question is whether the behavior of the scientific agents brings about a social configuration that is epistemically “optimal” or “efficient”. The economics of science predicts and/or explains the behavior of scientists and scientific institutions, whereas ESK adds the question of whether those actions and institutions produce scientific products that are cognitively efficient or optimal (or if they are not optimal, how the institutions might be changed in order to improve epistemic efficiency). While the distinction between the economics of science and ESK owes much to the distinction between the sociology of science and SSK, the barrier separating the economics of science from ESK is even more permeable than the one separating the sociology of science from SSK. This said, I still find the distinction useful [...] » (Hands 2001, 360-1 – emphasis added).

This time, Hands emphasizes the normative side of ESK. If we keep in mind that ESK seeks to study the content of scientific production from an economic perspective, it does not follow that it has to be normative. SSK also deals with the content of scientific production but, as a methodological principle, rejects any normative statement. We argue that if ESK can be normative (and indeed it sometimes is) it can not be a necessary condition for its definition. Moreover, welfare considerations are also present in the “old” economics of science, and thus can not be used to define the originality of the economics of scientific knowledge. As Mirowski puts it: “In attempting to frame an economics of science as a subset of welfare economics, Arrow and Nelson repeatedly suggested that the greatest flaw in market provision of research would be failure in arriving at Pareto optimality; that was a static (and perhaps totally empirically inaccessible) notion of welfare that had not been a pressing concern of writers on the subject since at least Bernal and Polanyi” (Mirowski 2011, 59).

Another recent contribution in ESK is made by Shi (2001) with The Economics of Scientific Knowledge - a Rational Choice Theory Neo-Instituionalist of Science. If Shi’s project poses a number of theoretical issues (Wible 2004), we will focus here on his definition of ESK. While Shi acknowledges his intellectual debt to Hands (Shi 2001, vii), he nevertheless adopts a different definition by clearly distinguishing NES and ESK:

« In economic studies of science, quasi-economic models of science or economics of scientific knowledge have been advocated by philosophy-orientated economists end economics-orientated philosophers over many years. Essentially, it focuses on the issues about in what senses the processes of scientific knowledge production are similar to those of economic exchange and market. Therefore, it must be distinguished from the so-called ‘new economics of science’, which has recently been developed by economists taking an interest in science policy issues, such as the relationship between proprietary R&D and university-based research, research resource allocation within the public sector and the role of intellectual property rights». (Shi 2001, xvi – emphasis added).

For us, the most important problem with this definition is that it adopts a controversial definition of NES. Remind the definition of NES that we provided when studying Dasgupta and David’s seminal paper. In our

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opinion, Shi can not distinguish NES from ESK since his definition of ESK is very close to the definition of NES proposed by Dasgupta and David. The distinction between ESK and NES made by Shi is thus hardly sustainable since it relies on a highly questionable definition of NES and, thereby, of ESK.

We finally turn to Bonilla (2005), the most recent attempt to define ESK. For him, a « working definition » of ESK consists of:

« […] the application of concepts and methods of economic analysis to the study of the epistemic nature and value of scientific knowledge » (Zamora Bonilla 2005, 2 – original emphasis).

For the author, the consequence of this definition is to take ESK out from economics to make it a part of epistemology:

« […] it entails that ESK will be considered here more as a branch of epistemology than as a branch of economics: economic concepts and methods are the tools, but scientific knowledge is our object. » (ibid: 5 – original emphasis).

This last quote is noteworthy regarding the definition of the boundaries between the scientific fields. For Bonilla, it would be the object of study that determines the field of study: as ESK deals with the epistemic nature of scientific knowledge, it is not economics but epistemology. But, we could argue instead that it is the methods which define a scientific discipline, as does the imperialistic movement in economics. Our point is that this last citation does not logically derive (it does not “entails”) from his definition of the field.

Finally, following Tyfield (forthcoming), the common problem with all theses definitions is that they do not take into account economics conditions, but only the analytical apparatus of economics as a discipline in dealing with the scientific production. Hence, a more “complete” definition of the field would not only deal with the economics but also with the economy. For us, then, a working definition of ESK could be:

The study, thanks to the methods, tools, concepts of economics and economic conditions of the epistemic value and nature of scientific knowledge.

We will stick to this working definition of ESK when dealing with Paul David’s 1998 work in the next section, showing why it could fit this category.

David as an ESK Author

We now turn to the study of a later paper by David, « Communication Norms and the Collective Cognitive Performance of ‘Invisible Colleges’ » (1998). For Bonilla (2005, 28), « in some more recent papers […] David has articulated some ideas which definitely belong into ESK field,

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particularly in David (1998), where he presents some models about the behaviour of reputation seeking scientists when deciding what opinion to express ». Indeed, as David deals with the nature (collective) and the value (expressed in terms of performances) of scientific knowledge, we see that it fits the definition of ESK provided above. Nevertheless, David himself thinks he is writing in the field of the new economics of science:

“As transparent as are the purposes and the logic of this paper, some background in the philosophy and sociology of science may be useful in order to situate it within the broader context of studies that have concerned themselves with the cognitive content of science and the intellectual and social organization of scientific communities. […] I have tried to indicate how the present contribution to “the new economics of science” fits within that larger enterprise” (David 1998, 116 – emphasis added).

In order to show that the object of study better corresponds to ESK we study below the object and results of this paper.

David assumes scientists to be rational agents whose beliefs evolve according to a Bayesian process and who are influenced by the beliefs of other members within their network. Social interactions between researchers take place into ‘invisible colleges’ defined as “informal structures of inter-personal knowledge-transactions” (David 1998, 115)3. The question is how, from these individuals features and through local network connections, a « collective cognitive performance » can be obtained. The main result, found thanks to the use of Markov’s random field theory and the percolation theory, is that a cognitive consensus is an emergent and path-dependent feature of the network.

In the following, we sum up David’s demonstration (ibid, 138-9). The question is to know if a scientist has to now be in conformity with the opinion of his peers, assuming a subjective probability on the future state of the opinion. We note c for being in conformity with the majority opinion of the network, and d for being in disagreement. For the purpose of the example, David assumes that the current opinion of the network is that the theory discussed is right, R. In the future, the theory will be held either to be true (R’) or wrong (W). We note p the subjective probability “assigned to the global consensus forming eventually” on R’. We thus have four cases:

a: [c, R/R’] associated probability: p (since the consensus forms on R’)3 This concept is an old one. Indeed, it was used by Robert Boyle in the seventeenth century and more recently popularized by Price (1963). For a discussion of this concept, see Collins (1974) and Crane (1969). For David, rational agents maximizing utility are interested in joining these colleges for two main reasons. The first is the "exchange value" of information. The simple idea is that, because of the cognitive division of labour between researchers, participating in networks allows an individual researcher to be able to resolve its potential problems much more effectively than in isolated conditions. The second reason to join these networks is that they confer a status, and are a sign of recognition from the scientific community (ibid, 127).

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b: [c, R/W] associated probability: (1-p) c: [d, R/R’] associated probability: p d:[d, R/W] associated probability: (1-p)

The expected utility of being in conformity is maximized when:

p.a + (1 - p).b > p.c + (1 - p).d

That is, when:

[(a – c) / (d – b)] > [(1 – p) /p]

A theory is then today adopted depending on the expected utility ratios and given the subjective probability of this theory of being accepted in the future. This probabilistic process is then represented by the Markovian graph theory. David shows that global rejection or adoption of a theory are two “absorbing states” (i.e. behaviours we can not escape once adopted) achieved in function of the number of agents accepting or rejecting T at the beginning of the process: that is why the process is said to be path-dependent4.

We thus have an example of how economists can account for the content of the scientific activity, namely the choice of a theory. It should also appear clearly that the questions asked by David in this paper are very different from the ones he asked in 1994. If institutional issues still remain important, he goes one step further in asking how they impact the content of the scientific production.

In the first and second part, we focused on the economic side of David’s papers. Nevertheless, he makes use of many sociological references in his two papers, especially in the Mertonian tradition. In the next third part, we analyse the sociological background of the two papers, showing David’s adherence to classical sociology of science and rejection of the sociology of scientific knowledge.

Sociological Issues

Between the old and the new economics of science, the sociology of science has known a great evolution with the development of the sociology of scientific knowledge in the eighties. For the following, it is important to note here the difference of questions asked by these two types of sociology of science. Whereas the traditional sociology of science deals with the institutional structures of the scientific production without talking about its content, SSK seeks to study the substantive nature of the scientific production from a social point of view. As Collins (1983) makes it clear:

4 Indeed, formally, a process can not be said to be path-dependent if it has not at least two absorbing states.

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“All the work coming under this heading [the sociology of science] could be said to turn on the elucidation of the set of normative and other institutional arrangements that enable science-the asking and answering of questions about Nature-to exist and function efficiently. A crucial feature of this program of inquiry is the assumption that the ultimate answers to the questions are Nature’s, mankind being only a mediator. Thus the proper institutional prerequisites must obviate the effect of mundane disagreements and biases. There must also be a reward system to encourage the vigorous pursuit of the answers. It might be possible to say something about the direction of scientific inquiry, but the answers become interesting to the sociologist only if they are wholly men’s answers rather than Nature’s-that is to say, if they are not “properly” a part of scientific knowledge. In the main, the content of scientific knowledge remained a closed book within the enterprise. [See Merton (1945) for a programmatic discussion.] The sociology of scientific knowledge, on the other hand, is concerned precisely with what comes to count. The crucial phrase is “comes to count” since no knowledge of what lies hidden beyond human scientific activity is claimed”. (Collins 1983, 266-7 – emphasis added).

In the following, we first study the Mertonian framework of NES, arguing that their relationship is understandable since the two frameworks ask the same kind (institutional) of questions. We then study the sociological framework of David’s 1998 paper, showing that he still relies on the Mertonian analysis, but that he goes one step further in rejecting SSK. We argue that this can be problematic because of the difference of objects between the two papers.

New Economics of Science and Mertonian Framework

The link between the analysis of Dasgupta and David and the sociology of science in the tradition of Merton is made through the integration of two of its most famous themes in their paper, namely the analysis of the reward structures based on the priority of discovery and the norm of information disclosure5. References to classical (Mertonian) sociology of science are indeed made explicit: “To carry out this program [NES], we will be building upon the foundations laid down by the classic contributions in the sociology of science […]” (Dasgupta & David 1994, 492). We study here the way in which the two authors deal with these two main Mertonian norms.

For the authors, a priority based reward system has two consequences: not only the acceleration of the discoveries, but also that of their publication. This system is rationally based becauce we can not judge the quality of a research before it is published, and running priority is consistent with the incentives of individual scientists. Moreover, and since there is no added value when a result is found twice, a priority based reward system is also socially optimal. The problem is that, in a strict system of priority, researchers from other ranks are not paid. However, Dasgupta and David make the assumption that researchers are risk-adverse. Hence, a strict system of remuneration based on priority could 5 These are the two main points treated by the authors, but they also cite, for example, the concept of « multiple discoveries » (Dasgupta & David 1994, 506).

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lead to the disappearance of scientists, since they do not want to take the risk of not being the first to make a discovery and not be paid for their research. Scientists must therefore have a fixed salary plus bonuses which take into account criteria such as priority. Another defect of such a priority based reward system would be that it could lead to a proliferation of research programs. The time dimension becomes central to deal with this issue. Instead of launching several projects at the same time, there may be significant learning effects leading to the deepening of a particular research topic. A central element for NES is therefore to escape the too static analysis framework of the old economics of science to account for the historical effects of the interactions between science and technology.

We now turn to the second main Mertonian concept used by the two authors, namely the norm of public disclosure. Making public new discoveries has for the authors two benefits: it serves to discover new knowledge and to get scientific judgment from peers. But an aggregation problem arises. Indeed, the standard of published research and cooperation among research teams is in tension with the wish of being the first to publish results. At this stage of the analysis, (repeated) game theory is a tool used for solving the problem of behavior among different rival researchers. The solution is as follows: Dasgupta and David assume that two researchers are working on the same problem composed of two sub-problems. Once a team has found out the result of one of the two sub-problems, must it share (S) it with the other team or otherwise keep such information (W)? If both teams share their results, they then publish together. If the strategy followed by the researchers is (S, W) then it is the second team who publishes since it has the two solutions, and vice versa in the case of (W, S). If both play (W), each of them has to seek the solution of the second sub-problem. The structure is typically that of the prisoner's dilemma, in which the outcome is known to be socially suboptimal. Dasgupta and David escape this by using the theory of repeated games with the possibility of punishment. In a game with more than two agents, the advantage is given to small research networks who can more easily detect the deviants and punish them more efficiently, because non-cooperative agents will have more difficulty in finding other outsiders when they are members of a small team.

The above show that Dasgupta & David import the concepts of the functionalist Mertonian sociology of science, and inscribe them in an economic framework (using game theory, risk aversion hypothesis etc.). This could have an important consequence: removing the sociological substance of these concepts in order to make them compatible with an economic rationale. We could thus think that social norms studied by the sociologists and process of socialization of scientists have become useless. But Dasgupta and David have anticipated this critique and answer as follows concerning the norm of disclosure:

“Does this imply that the normative content of Merton’s communalistic norm of disclosure is really redundant, and plays no role in fostering conditions of cooperation among citizens of the Republic of Science? Not

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at all! For it can be shown that networks of cooperative information-sharing will be more likely to form spontaneously if the potential participants start by expecting others to cooperate than if they expect ‘trust’ to be betrayed, and cooperative patterns of behavior will be sustained longer if participants have reason to expect refusals to cooperate will be encountered only in retaliation for transgressions on their part. […] It is evident from this that even if the process of socialization among scientists were weak and imperfect, the common ‘culture of Science’ makes it much more possible for the rule of priority to engage the self-interest of researchers in reinforcing adherence to the norm of disclosure, at least among a restricted circle of colleagues” (Dasgupta & David 1994, 504 – emphasis added).

If NES makes use of the traditional sociology of science, the remaining question is how it does so. The above citation shows that the economic rationale is more sustainable when backed with social norms, but the later are not necessary conditions to attain economic efficiency. The sentence “be more likely to form spontaneously” quoted above is a typical way of David to make use of sociological norms. Indeed, how could something formed spontaneously be at the same time ‘more likely to be’?

In the next section, we study the way David deals with the sociology of science in his 1998 paper, showing that he still relies on the Mertonian framework, but adds a rejection of the sociology of scientific knowledge that can be discussed.

Mertonian Framework and Rejection of SSK in David’s 1998 Paper: “Plus ça change et plus c’est la meme chose”6?

In his 1998 paper, David is much more explicit regarding his position about the sociology of science: not only he still adopts the traditional Mertonian functionalist sociology, but he also rejects the sociology of scientific knowledge:

« it is perhaps not surprising that the ‘new economics of science’ found it most natural to start by reworking the area of organizational analysis originally ploughed by Mertonian sociology of science, looking at the implications of certain institutional arrangements for allocative efficiency in the production of generic information that acquires a certain measure of reliability ; but not troubling itself over the nature of reliability in this context, nor the details of the way that attribute of information might be acquired, nor any of the other issues of socio-cognitive interaction that have occupied the sociology of scientific knowledge” (David 1998, 120 – emphasis added).

We study these two main points in the following.

First, David still relies on the functionalist sociology of science. His aim is to reconcile the historically separate tradition of the study of the scientific institutions and the study of the content of the production of scientific knowledge: 6 David 1998, 119.

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“[…] it is shown that the relationship between micro-levels behaviors of the research units, on the one hand, and the macro-level cognitive performance of the invisible college represented by the network of local networks, on the other hand, have a quite direct correspondence with the functionalist sociology of science in the tradition of Merton (1973)” (ibid, 117).

The way David deals with the Mertonian sociology of science is the same than in his 1994 paper, and indeed some passages about it are identical7. The point is still to show that sociological norms can be grounded on an economic rationale. Socialization is considered in a very specific way: it can help to reach the economic efficiency more easily. From this point of view, “theses ‘norms’ of the Republic of Science serve an important epistemological function” (155, original emphasis). This also means that even if socialization eases the process, it can do without it:

“To restate the thrust of the foregoing discussion, it is possible that cooperative behavior within a limited social sphere can emerge and be sustained without requiring the prior perfect socialization of researchers to conform (altruistically) to the norm of full disclosure and cooperation. This is a rather straightforward instance in which insights from the theory of repeated games are applicable to explaining cooperative behaviour among potentially rivalrous researchers” (ibid, 129).

By contrast with his paper about the new economics of science, David deals here with the sociology of scientific knowledge. We have seen that one of the aims of David’s paper is to reconcile the institutional analysis of the Mertonian tradition with a study of the content of scientific production thanks to network analysis. For him, if the traditional sociology of science can not deal with the content of scientific production, the sociology of scientific knowledge can not deal with the organizational structure of science8. These two types of sociological analyses would thus be pretty much the same in that they could not cope with the interactions of micro and macro levels:

“In the 1970’s a new generation of sociologists took up the sociology of scientific knowledge – “SSK”, as it came to be styled. They insisted, with ample reason, that the cognitive and the social dimensions of science should no longer remain compartmentalized as distinct, specialized fields of inquiry [f. n. 5]. Instead, the subject matter had to be seen in reality to be inseparable. This was held to be so, because in “discourse” – within whose terms it was held possible to analyze everything – social and cognitive contexts are thoroughly inter-penetrating and mutually interactive. Left behind in the border-crossing rush of the SSK movement, however, were the old sociology of science’s foci of attention, namely, the institutionalized reward systems, the social norms and the relationship of these to the organization of resource allocation within scientific communities. In the evaluation of these academic

7 Indeed: “the following parallels material developed in Dasgupta and David [1994]” (ibid, 129 f. n. 22).8 This also points out that, from an historical point of view, the sociology of science started from a macro standpoint and has become more and more micro. This is typically the case with the French “actor network theory”.

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transactions, as the case in other affairs, experience sometimes seems to reaffirm the aphorism of the French: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The cognitive content of science and the macro-sociological, organizational structures of scientific communities, once again, could not be held simultaneously within the focus of scholarly attention” (ibid, 119).

However, this characterization of SSK seems at odds with some of the major work done in the field. If SSK is different of the SS in its object, we agree with Hands (1997- quoted above) when he says that we can find both in the same study. It is for example the case of Schaffer and Shapin (1985) well known Leviathan and the Air Pump: Hobbes, Boyle and the Experimental Life, in which (among other things) they relate this controversy to a broader social philosophy.

David also considers the sociology of scientific knowledge when taking position in the “culture wars” between realists and relativists. He wants to escape the battle by advocating an evolutionary epistemology, which would represent a middle-ground. For our purpose, it is worth noticing that, for David, the sociology of scientific knowledge is on the side of the relativists (which here mean anti-realists):

“The Edinburgh “strong programme” for the sociology of scientific knowledge proposed that the mechanism of consensus formation should be one that was neutral with respect to eventual conclusion as to the validity or falsity of the propositions. This was a useful departure, in asking sociologists of science to take notice of what they had learned of a generic nature about belief-formation in communities of specialized practitioners. It was a mistake, however, to suppose that such a programme by it self would be sufficient to generate a useful sociology of knowledge in modern scientific communities. This, surely is what Perutz (1996) means when referring to the Second Law of Thermodynamics as not merely a “social construction”, but something objectively real about the atomic makeup of matter” (ibid, 144).

The problem here is that sociologists of scientific knowledge are not the anti-realists they are often depicted as. Regarding this issue, we can not talk of the sociology of scientific knowledge, as Davis does, because there seems to be no consensus in the field. For example, in Scientific Knowledge, a Sociological Analysis (1996), one of the major books in SSK, B. Barnes, D. Bloor and J. Henry claim that they do not oppose realism:

“Some sociologists see realism as a style or assumption that is to be opposed. Our view is that it can be understood and illuminated by the finitist account already developed” (ibid, x)

“Observation is rightly thought of as a channel or inlet through which the material world around us makes its presence felt. To understand observation is therefore to understand the role played by the reality of our environment in the formation of beliefs about it. All too often the charge is made that sociologists of knowledge deny or improperly minimize the role played this reality. Occasionally sociologists may have given this impression, but by beginning with observation we want to emphasize that this would be a misreading of the position developed here. The aim will be to show how the sociological analysis of knowledge can and must proceed on the assumption that at the basis of knowledge

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there lies a causal interaction between the knower and reality” (ibid, 1 – emphasis added).

It would also be relevant to note that accusations of relativism are not only made against the “strong programme” but also against the entire field of the sociology of science, including Mertonian theory. If David rejects SSK on the ground of its supposed relativism, he should also ask this question regarding the traditional sociology of science, and show why it would be less relativist (and then, for him, more acceptable) than SSK.

It is also noteworthy that David seeks to reconcile SS and SSK with the use of networks and an evolutionary epistemology. But why wanting to reconcile the two approaches if SSK is thought as misleading? This ambiguity can also be seen when David claims that NES can be a middle-ground between the traditional sociology of science and SSK:

“[…] the extension of new economics of science in the indicate direction has something to offer that has hitherto eluded studies in the SSK tradition. In those and other explorations of the cognitive dimension of science, similarly based on networks and inscriptions and the artifacts (to which those inscriptions refer and are referred to in turn) there is general difficulty in knowing how to resolve a larger picture from the microcosm of detailed filiations. One wants at the end of the day to know how the workings of these micro-level networks are connected to the properties of the macro-structure of scientific institutions; to the evolution of fields of scientific endeavors that become organized through the extension of social networks and their supporting apparatus of journals, conferences, professional societies, and suchlike. What characterizes social networks in science? How do the behaviors of the individual participants in scientific networks affect the ability of the collectivity to do its work, and does a network’s cognitive-domain performance, that is to say, in creating and validating knowledge, affect its opportunities for growth? Questions of this sort crop up repeatedly on the critical “middle ground” between the older and newer sociologies of science. The new economics of science should have something to offer by way of answers. So, it is precisely in that potentially hazardous no-man’s-land that the present contribution is meant to stand” (David 1998, 123 –emphasis added).

The problem here is that the imperialistic claim of David that NES can remedy the supposed problems of SSK is based on the projection of David’s own concern on SSK literature. David regrets here that the macro level of analysis would not be studied by SSK authors. We have seen before that if it is true that compared to the traditional sociology of science SSK focuses more on micro level, it does meant that it rules out the macro level entirely. Furthermore, to criticise a field because it does not ask the questions you would like it to ask seems to be a weak argument. The claim that NES “has something to offer that has hitherto eluded studies in the SSK tradition” is thus, for us, overstated.

Finally, even if David rejects SSK, it is ironical to see that some sociologists in the field of SSK are interested in one of his most famous concept, namely the “path dependency” (David 1988):

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“An other area of mutual interest [between SSK and economics] is in the notions like “path dependence” and the development of new markets. How a new technology gets “locked in” to produce a “path dependence” is something quite well understood in terms of the social construction of technology approach” (Pinch, 1997: 749).

This shows that the relationship between SSK and ESK is somehow asymmetric: whereas ESK is more often suspicious regarding SSK, the reverse is not true. This can also be seen, for example, when sociologists such as Latour and Woolgar use economic metaphors/concepts in their analysis (Hands 1994; Latour & Woolgar 1986; McClellan 1996).

Conclusion: Old Tools and New Objects.

Our aim, in this paper, was to try to provide some clarifications about the recent development of expressions such as “new economics of science” and “economics of scientific knowledge” in the field of the economics of science, taking the example of one of its leading author, Paul David. The study of the seminal paper by Dasgupta and David allowed us to define NES as the economic study of production, dissemination and use of knowledge, using the tools of modern economic theory (asymmetric information, game theory, dynamic processes etc.) and relying on the results of the traditional economics of science and functionalist sociology of science in the tradition of Merton. We then reviewed the main definitions of ESK and also proposed a definition. A working definition of ESK could for us be the study, thanks to the methods, tools, concepts of economics and the economic conditions of the epistemic value and nature of scientific knowledge. We then took the example of a later paper by David to show the difference between these two types of economics of science. The second part of the paper was dedicated to the sociological background of these two papers. We showed how David uses the Mertonian tradition in 1994 and in 1998 but, for this later article, also rejects SSK on disputable grounds.

Our point is that, whereas one can understand why David relies on the Mertonian framework in 1994, we could have expected that when he deals with the very content of the scientific production in 1998, he would have rejected it in order to make use of the insights provided by SSK. Instead, we have seen that he was still relying on the classical sociology of science and was going further in rejecting SSK. Thus, whereas the object of David’s study changed between these two articles, from institutional questions to epistemic ones, his sociological background remained the same.

For David, relying on Mertonian analysis while dealing with the content of scientific production is not a problem when the link is made through network analysis. In doing so, David makes, for us, a confusion between the distinction micro/macro and the distinction institutions/content: “[…] it is shown that the relationship between micro-level behaviors of the research unit, on the one hand, and the macro-level cognitive performance of the invisible college represented by the network of local

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networks, on the other hand, have a quite direct correspondence with the functionalist sociology of science in the tradition of Merton (1973)” (David 1998, 117-emphasis added). First, network analysis is most often represented as a way to escape the micro/macro dichotomy in providing a meso analysis, which represents a level of analysis per se. The claim that network analysis (only) provides a middle-ground between micro and macro levels of analysis can thus be criticized in the first place. Secondly, David seems to think that linking macro and micro levels is equal to linking epistemic to institutional questions. One can hardly see why institutional questions are located at the micro level and why epistemic one are located at the macro level9. These kinds of issues are typically those pointed out by SSK, but since David rejects it, we could understand why he does this kind of confusion.

What are the broader consequences?

The way ESK should rely on SSK has been recently debated. For Tyfield (2008), the finitist account of meaning provided by SSK is a major philosophical issue, and for this reason ESK could not be based on a SSK which would adopt this principle10. It is worth noticing that the question raised by theses debates is: Can ESK be based on SSK? Which is different from: How ESK can make use of SSK? For example, Mirowski (2011) rejects the traditional sociology of science on the grounds that it is too old fashioned to understand the actual current development of science production, and makes use of insights coming from SSK literature. Even if ESK can not be based on SSK, a crucial question is thus to know if it can still make use of it as a sociological background and, if yes, in which way.

We thus can claim that ESK should also be very careful in making use of the traditional sociology of science in order to avoid the epistemological dead-end of their different objects of study and questions they ask.

But if ESK could not use the traditional sociology of science or the sociology of scientific knowledge, the crucial point becomes: Is ESK condemned to have no relations with the sociology of science just like the old economics of science? This question opens the door to a history of the relationship between the economics of science and the sociology of science, but that is an other story to be told.

9 To be fair with David’s paper, we can find passages where he links macro level of analysis to institutional questions. For example: “One wants at the end of the day to know how the workings of these micro-level networks are connected to the properties of the macro-structure of scientific institutions […]” (David 1998, 123). It only adds to the confusion. 10 See the critique of Giraud and Weintraub (2009) and the reply by Tyfield (2009).

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