The Publication Choice Problem

Haichuan Wang; Yifan Wu; Haifeng Xu

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arXiv · 2511.13678

The Publication Choice Problem

Haichuan Wang·Yifan Wu·Haifeng Xu

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Abstract

Researchers strategically choose where to submit their work in order to maximize its impact, and these publication decisions in turn determine venues' impact factors. To analyze how individual publication choices both respond to and shape venue impact, we introduce a game-theoretic framework, coined the Publication Choice Problem, that captures this two-way interplay. We show the existence of a pure-strategy equilibrium in the Publication Choice Problem and its uniqueness under binary researcher types. Our characterizations of the equilibrium properties offer insights about what publication behaviors better indicate a researcher's impact level. Through equilibrium analysis, we further investigate how labeling papers with ``spotlight'' affects the impact factor of venues in the research community. Our analysis shows that competitive venue labeling top papers with ``spotlight'' may decrease the overall impact of other venues in the community, while less competitive venues with ``spotlight'' labeling have the opposite impact.

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Haichuan Wang, Yifan Wu, Haifeng Xu. 2025-11-20. The Publication Choice Problem. https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.13678

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