[nonbel]

>"Authorship and citations are basically academic currency, and as such have undergone inflation just like real currency."

Currencies don't just undergo inflation for no reason. Central banks create that situation on purpose to discourage saving.

[fjsolwmv]

But the method they use is printing money to move the value of money from those who had it to toward those who get the newly printed money. Same as with academics publications who do that decentralized.

(Another, more-natural (Austrian), cause of inflation is a contracting economy so dollars chase fewer goods.)

[nonbel]

If publication of a new article is lowering the value of previous articles that indicates a severe dysfunction (which may indeed by the case).

If understanding/knowledge is being accumulated by a field the new publications should make those that they cite even more valuable, not less like in the case of a fungible currency.