全球智库信息集成服务系统(G2TT): Collaboration, Stars, and the Changing Organization of Science: Evidence from Evolutionary Biology

G2TT

来源类型	Working Paper
规范类型	报告
DOI	10.3386/w19653
来源ID	Working Paper 19653
	Collaboration, Stars, and the Changing Organization of Science: Evidence from Evolutionary Biology
	Ajay Agrawal; John McHale; Alexander Oettl
发表日期	2013-11-14
出版年	2013
语种	英语
摘要	We report a puzzling pair of facts concerning the organization of science. The concentration of research output is declining at the department level but increasing at the individual level. For example, in evolutionary biology, over the period 1980 to 2000, the fraction of citation-weighted publications produced by the top 20% of departments falls from approximately 75% to 60% but over the same period rises for the top 20% of individual scientists from 70% to 80%. We speculate that this may be due to changing patterns of collaboration, perhaps caused by the rising burden of knowledge and the falling cost of communication, both of which increase the returns to collaboration. Indeed, we report evidence that the propensity to collaborate is rising over time. Furthermore, the nature of collaboration is also changing. For example, the geographic distance as well as the difference in institution rank between collaborators is increasing over time. Moreover, the relative size of the pool of potential distant collaborators for star versus non-star scientists is rising over time. We develop a simple model based on star advantage in terms of the opportunities for collaboration that provides a unified explanation for these facts. Finally, considering the effect of individual location decisions of stars on the overall distribution of human capital, we speculate on the efficiency of the emerging distribution of scientific activity, given the localized externalities generated by stars on the one hand and the increasing returns to distant collaboration on the other.
主题	Health, Education, and Welfare ; Education ; Labor Economics ; Labor Supply and Demand ; Industrial Organization ; Firm Behavior ; Development and Growth ; Innovation and R& ; D
URL	https://www.nber.org/papers/w19653
来源智库	National Bureau of Economic Research (United States)
引用统计
资源类型	智库出版物
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/577327
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Ajay Agrawal,John McHale,Alexander Oettl. Collaboration, Stars, and the Changing Organization of Science: Evidence from Evolutionary Biology. 2013.