Skill, status and the Matthew effect: a theoretical framework

Abstract

To gain a deeper understanding of the Matthew effect in academic recognition among researchers, three social influence models of status hierarchies in the form of agent-based models are presented, where the positivity of the Lyapunov characteristic exponent is the quantitative operationalization of the Matthew effect. We find that the Matthew effect in status attribution is a generic property of the social influence model where skills depend on status (28.1% of all examined parameterizations) twice as often as in the model with constant skills (14.1%) and that the Matthew effect is a generic property of the model where skills depend on previous skills (43.0%) trice as often as in the model with constant skills. Hence, if one argues in favor of a meritocratic system in which research grants are awarded based on researchers’ skills rather than their status in the scientific community, and if grant-providing bodies also adhere to this principle, there is a higher probability of observing the Matthew effect in academic recognition among researchers. Employing the Lyapunov characteristic exponent to investigate the presence of the Matthew effect in a theoretical model is novel in the literature.