Some Generative Mechanisms of Intellectual Production

Abstract

In this contribution, the author tests empirically the three markets’ hypothesis developed by Ben-David and Boudon on the basis of data on intellectual production in the field of social sciences and humanities in Morocco. The article highlights the mathematical models of the intellectual production that are found to be different from those that characterize production in the natural sciences. One important conclusion the author comes up with in his study is that « Matthew effect», identified by Merton for the natural sciences, is nonexistent in the social sciences and humanities. Production in these latter disciplines does not fit in this effect according to which the act of publishing once increases the probability of publishing a second time and so on. Such an absence of cumulative process is accounted for based on the structure of market supply and demand of intellectual products as well as the increasingly tenuous role played by the scientific community.