IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gat/wpaper/2605.html

Information Asymmetry in the Scientific Labor Market: The Role of Relational Links

Author

Listed:
  • Pierre Boutros

    (Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, GREDEG (UMR 7321), France)

  • Michele Pezzoni

    (Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, GREDEG (UMR 7321), France and Observatoire des Sciences et Techniques, HCERES, France)

  • Lionel Nesta

    (Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, GREDEG (UMR 7321), France, OFCE, Sciences Po, France, and SKEMA Business School, France)

  • Sonia Paty

    (Université Lumière Lyon 2, CNRS, Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne, emlyon business school, GATE (UMR 5824), Lyon, France)

Abstract

This paper investigates the factors predicting the destination choice of mobile researchers. To do so, we use a unique dataset on researchers’ mobility between labs within the largest French public research organization from 2012 to 2022. We find that relational links, namely citation and co-authorship links between mobile researchers and destination lab members, are among the strongest predictors of researchers’ destination choices. Specifically, a citation link prior to mobility between a researcher and a lab is associated with a 3.7 percentage-point higher probability that the researcher chooses that lab as a destination, while a co-authorship link is associated with a 9.8 percentage-point higher probability. We argue that citation and co-authorship links are highly relevant because they serve as information channels to help address substantial information asymmetry between researchers and potential destination labs before mobility. We further find that citation links are better predictors of destination choice when the cognitive distance between the researcher and the lab is high, whereas co-authorship plays a stronger role when the cognitive distance is low. Finally, we find that other lab characteristics, such as the size, productivity, and funding availability, are less relevant to the destination choice.

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre Boutros & Michele Pezzoni & Lionel Nesta & Sonia Paty, 2026. "Information Asymmetry in the Scientific Labor Market: The Role of Relational Links," Working Papers 2605, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Etienne (GATE Lyon St-Etienne), Université de Lyon.
    • Handle: RePEc:gat:wpaper:2605
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.gate.cnrs.fr/RePEc/2026/2605.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    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:gat:wpaper:2605. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Béatrice HENRY (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gateefr.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.