IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlabec/doi10.1086-678973.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Collaborating with People Like Me: Ethnic Coauthorship within the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Richard B. Freeman
  • Wei Huang

Abstract

By examining the ethnic identity of authors in over 2.5 million scientific papers written by US-based authors from 1985 to 2008, we find that persons of similar ethnicity coauthor together more frequently than predicted by their proportion among authors. The greater homophily is associated with publication in lower-impact journals and with fewer citations. Meanwhile, papers with authors in more locations and with longer reference lists get published in higher-impact journals and receive more citations. These findings suggest that diversity in inputs by author ethnicity, location, and references leads to greater contributions to science as measured by impact factors and citations.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard B. Freeman & Wei Huang, 2015. "Collaborating with People Like Me: Ethnic Coauthorship within the United States," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(S1), pages 289-318.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlabec:doi:10.1086/678973
    DOI: 10.1086/678973
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/678973
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/678973
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chiara Franzoni & Giuseppe Scellato & Paula Stephan, 2012. "Foreign Born Scientists: Mobility Patterns for Sixteen Countries," NBER Working Papers 18067, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Andreas Strotmann & Dangzhi Zhao, 2012. "Author name disambiguation: What difference does it make in author-based citation analysis?," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(9), pages 1820-1833, September.
    3. George J. Borjas & Kirk B. Doran, 2012. "The Collapse of the Soviet Union and the Productivity of American Mathematicians," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 127(3), pages 1143-1203.
    4. Richard B. Freeman, 2006. "Does Globalization of the Scientific/Engineering Workforce Threaten U.S. Economic Leadership?," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 6, pages 123-158, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. John Bound & Sarah Turner & Patrick Walsh, 2009. "Internationalization of U.S. Doctorate Education," NBER Chapters, in: Science and Engineering Careers in the United States: An Analysis of Markets and Employment, pages 59-97, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. William R. Kerr, 2008. "Ethnic Scientific Communities and International Technology Diffusion," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 518-537, August.
    7. William R. Kerr & William F. Lincoln, 2010. "The Supply Side of Innovation: H-1B Visa Reforms and U.S. Ethnic Invention," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(3), pages 473-508, July.
    8. George A. Lozano & Vincent Larivière & Yves Gingras, 2012. "The weakening relationship between the impact factor and papers' citations in the digital age," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(11), pages 2140-2145, November.
    9. Agrawal, Ajay & Kapur, Devesh & McHale, John, 2008. "How do spatial and social proximity influence knowledge flows? Evidence from patent data," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 258-269, September.
    10. Wei Huang, 2015. "DO ABCs GET MORE CITATIONS THAN XYZs?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(1), pages 773-789, January.
    11. Richard B. Freeman & Ina Ganguli & Raviv Murciano-Goroff, 2014. "Why and Wherefore of Increased Scientific Collaboration," NBER Chapters, in: The Changing Frontier: Rethinking Science and Innovation Policy, pages 17-48, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. George A. Lozano & Vincent Larivière & Yves Gingras, 2012. "The weakening relationship between the impact factor and papers' citations in the digital age," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(11), pages 2140-2145, November.
    13. Stefano Breschi & Francesco Lissoni, 2009. "Mobility of skilled workers and co-invention networks: an anatomy of localized knowledge flows," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 9(4), pages 439-468, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General
    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination

    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:ucp:jlabec:doi:10.1086/678973. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Journals Division). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JOLE .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.