# kaal:claim:6269518-033

**Claim.** The equilibrium depends on a design requirement rather than an assumption: mechanism parameters must be chosen so that the negative effect of increased self-citation on the honesty score outweighs its positive effect on the value score, at which point increasing self-citation strictly decreases utility.

**Type.** condition  **Support.** argued

**Holds when.**

- validators rate citation honesty lower when self-citation is inflated

**Source quote.**

> the mechanism parameters (θ = 0.6, reputation coefficient = 2) are chosen such that the negative effect of increased self-citation on the honesty score outweighs the positive effect on the value score.

**From.** Wulf A. Kaal, *Citation Honesty Mechanisms in Weighted Directed Acyclic Graph Governance* (2026), V.E. Proof of Honest Citation Equilibrium (Theorem 3b), page 15

**Cite as.** Wulf A. Kaal, Citation Honesty Mechanisms in Weighted Directed Acyclic Graph Governance (2026). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=6269518

**Verify.** sha256 of source PDF `f096ecf5b41bb9ae8642facd54b9149c7b594de53a1cc32718a4d806b772f88f` at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wulfkaal/Academic-Papers/main/papers/pdf/Kaal%20-%202026%20-%20Citation%20Honesty%20Mechanisms%20in%20Weighted%20Directed%20Acyclic%20Graph%20Governance.pdf

**Topics.** economics, citation-and-knowledge

**Keywords.** parameter-calibration, nash-equilibrium, self-citation, utility-maximization

**Canonical form.** This markdown file is the canonical hashed representation of the claim. Its sha256 is the content hash used for attestation.