2026 General Seminar - Miaomiao Dong (Penn State)

Title: Strategic Disclosure in Research Races

by Kalyan Chatterjee,  Kaustav Das,  Miaomiao Dong and Nicolas Klein

Abstract:  We study a research race between two players working on identical two-step projects. To work on the second step, a player must complete the first step. Each step is completed with a discovery. Once a discovery is made, a player decides whether and when to disclose it. Disclosure of an intermediate discovery gives an immediate reward to the player, but it also allows the opponent to copy it and compete for a final reward from the final discovery. We show that a higher final reward has a non-monotonic effect on when the intermediate finding is disclosed and when the final finding is discovered: A higher final reward speeds up both if and only if the final reward is low.