"Little Science" and "Big Science": The Institution of "Open Science" as a cause of scientific and economic inequalities among countries

Abstract In this paper we analyse how the science sector's incentive structure strongly contributes to the development of science and of the economy, even if, in the same time, it can cause large disparities in size and productivity of scientific sectors of different countries. In order to show that, we adopt a Schumpeterian growth model where the resources allocated to science are endogenously determined within the economy and science is organised according to the institution of “Open Science”. This latter consists in a self- ...