IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/14577.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Superstar Extinction

Author

Listed:
  • Pierre Azoulay
  • Joshua S. Graff Zivin
  • Jialan Wang

Abstract

We estimate the magnitude of spillovers generated by 112 academic "superstars" who died pre- maturely and unexpectedly, thus providing an exogenous source of variation in the structure of their collaborators' coauthorship networks. Following the death of a superstar, we find that collaborators experience, on average, a lasting 5 to 8% decline in their quality-adjusted publication rates. By exploring interactions of the treatment effect with a variety of star, coauthor and star/coauthor dyad characteristics, we seek to adjudicate between plausible mechanisms that might explain this finding. Taken together, our results suggest that spillovers are circumscribed in idea space, but less so in physical or social space. In particular, superstar extinction reveals the boundaries of the scientific field to which the star contributes -- the "invisible college."

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre Azoulay & Joshua S. Graff Zivin & Jialan Wang, 2008. "Superstar Extinction," NBER Working Papers 14577, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14577
    Note: PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14577.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Manuel Trajtenberg & Gil Shiff & Ran Melamed, 2009. "The "Names Game": Harnessing Inventors, Patent Data for Economic Research," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 93-94, pages 67-77.
    2. Azoulay, Pierre & Stellman, Andrew & Zivin, Joshua Graff, 2006. "PublicationHarvester: An open-source software tool for science policy research," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(7), pages 970-974, September.
    3. Benner, Mary & Waldfogel, Joel, 2008. "Close to you? Bias and precision in patent-based measures of technological proximity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 1556-1567, October.
    4. Jaffe, Adam B, 1986. "Technological Opportunity and Spillovers of R&D: Evidence from Firms' Patents, Profits, and Market Value," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(5), pages 984-1001, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Battke, Benedikt & Schmidt, Tobias S. & Stollenwerk, Stephan & Hoffmann, Volker H., 2016. "Internal or external spillovers—Which kind of knowledge is more likely to flow within or across technologies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 27-41.
    2. Figueroa, Nicolás & Serrano, Carlos J., 2019. "Patent trading flows of small and large firms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(7), pages 1601-1616.
    3. Shu Yu & Takaya Yuizono, 2021. "A Proximity Approach to Understanding University-Industry Collaborations for Innovation in Non-Local Context: Exploring the Catch-Up Role of Regional Absorptive Capacity," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-19, March.
    4. Dai, Lu & Zhang, Jiajun & Luo, Shougui, 2022. "Effective R&D capital and total factor productivity: Evidence using spatial panel data models," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    5. Favaro, Donata & Ninka, Eniel, 2019. "Inventors’ working relationships and knowledge creation: a study on patented innovation," INVESTIGACIONES REGIONALES - Journal of REGIONAL RESEARCH, Asociación Española de Ciencia Regional, issue 45, pages 55-76.
    6. Pierre Azoulay & Joshua S. Graff Zivin & Bhaven N. Sampat, 2011. "The Diffusion of Scientific Knowledge across Time and Space: Evidence from Professional Transitions for the Superstars of Medicine," NBER Chapters, in: The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity Revisited, pages 107-155, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Aldieri, Luigi & Aprile, Maria Carmela & Vinci, Concetto Paolo, 2015. "R&D Spillovers Effects on strategic behaviour of Large International Firms," MPRA Paper 63402, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Lee Branstetter & Neil Gandal & Nadav Kuniesky, 2017. "Network-Mediated Knowledge Spillovers: A Cross-Country Comparative Analysis of Information Security Innovations," NBER Working Papers 23808, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Jiuling Xiao & Yuting Bao & Jiankang Wang, 2023. "Which neighbor is more conducive to innovation? The moderating effect of partners’ innovation," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 33-67, February.
    10. Caviggioli, Federico, 2016. "Technology fusion: Identification and analysis of the drivers of technology convergence using patent data," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 55, pages 22-32.
    11. Blazsek, Szabolcs & Escribano, Álvaro, 2014. "Propensity to patent, R&D and market competition : dynamic spillovers of innovation leaders and followers," UC3M Working papers. Economics we1412, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    12. Katia Angue & Cécile Ayerbe & Liliana Mitkova, 2014. "A method using two dimensions of the patent classification for measuring the technological proximity: an application in identifying a potential R&D partner in biotechnology," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 39(5), pages 716-747, October.
    13. Giuri, Paola & Mariani, Myriam, 2007. "Inventors and invention processes in Europe: Results from the PatVal-EU survey," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 1105-1106, October.
    14. Marco Testoni, 2022. "The market value spillovers of technological acquisitions: Evidence from patent‐text analysis," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(5), pages 964-985, May.
    15. Carayol, Nicolas & Bergé, Laurent & Cassi, Lorenzo & Roux, Pascale, 2019. "Unintended triadic closure in social networks: The strategic formation of research collaborations between French inventors," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 218-238.
    16. George Chondrakis & Eduardo Melero & Mari Sako, 2022. "The effect of coordination requirements on sourcing decisions: Evidence from patent prosecution services," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(6), pages 1141-1169, June.
    17. Nemet, Gregory F., 2012. "Inter-technology knowledge spillovers for energy technologies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1259-1270.
    18. Luigi Aldieri & Marisa Faggini & Concetto Paolo Vinci, 2018. "Knowledge Technology Transfer: A Spatial Analysis within the Triad," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 13(9), pages 1-89, August.
    19. Favaro, Donata & Ninka, Eniel & Turvani, Margherita, 2014. "Knowledge externalities and knowledge creation: the role of inventors’ working relationships and mobility," MPRA Paper 64527, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Bar, Talia & Leiponen, Aija, 2012. "A measure of technological distance," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 457-459.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14577. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.