Drivers of country-level retraction patterns

Identify the relative roles of genuine misconduct, differential detection efforts, paper mill activity, and structural factors in producing the observed country-level patterns of retraction incidence between 1992 and 2021.

Background

The paper documents a ‘concentration paradox’ in which scientific output becomes more globally distributed while retractions become concentrated in fewer countries.

Given differences in detection capacity, editorial practices, and exposure to paper mills, the observed geographic patterns may arise from multiple mechanisms that the present analysis cannot separate.