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The Life Cycle of Scholars and Papers in Economics -- the "Citation Death Tax"

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  • Joshua Aizenman
  • Kenneth Kletzer

Abstract

The information content of academic citations is subject to debate. This paper views premature death as a tragic "natural experiment," outlining a methodology identifying the "citation death tax" -- the impact of death of productive economists on the patterns of their citations. We rely on a sample of 428 papers written by 16 well known economists who died well before retirement, during the period of 1975- 97. The news is mixed: for half of the sample, we identify a large and significant "citation death tax" for the average paper written by these scholars. For these authors, the estimated average missing citations per paper attributed to premature death ranges from 40% to 140% (the overall average is about 90%), and the annual costs of lost citations per paper are in the range 3% and 14%. Hence, a paper written ten years before the author's death avoids a citation cost that varies between 30% and 140%. For the other half of the sample, there is no citation death tax; and for two Nobel Prize-caliber scholars in this second group, Black and Tversky, citations took off overtime, reflecting the growing recognitions of their seminal works.

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  • Joshua Aizenman & Kenneth Kletzer, 2008. "The Life Cycle of Scholars and Papers in Economics -- the "Citation Death Tax"," NBER Working Papers 13891, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13891
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    Cited by:

    1. Müller, Harry, 2012. "Die Zitationshäufigkeit als Qualitätsindikator im Rahmen der Forschungsleistungsmessung," Discussion Papers of the Institute for Organisational Economics 1/2012, University of Münster, Institute for Organisational Economics.
    2. Li, Ang & Li, Ben, 2021. "Alphabetic norm and research output," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 50-60.
    3. Di Vaio, Gianfranco & Waldenström, Daniel & Weisdorf, Jacob, 2012. "Citation success: Evidence from economic history journal publications," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 92-104.
    4. Heinrich Ursprung, 2020. "Jane Beats Them All: Price Formation and Financial Returns to Investing in Rare Books," CESifo Working Paper Series 8302, CESifo.
    5. Hamermesh, Daniel S. & Kosnik, Lea-Rachel, 2022. "Aging in Style: Does How We Write Matter?," IZA Discussion Papers 15739, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2018. "Citations in Economics: Measurement, Uses, and Impacts," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(1), pages 115-156, March.
    7. Carillo, Maria Rosaria & Papagni, Erasmo, 2014. "“Little Science” and “Big Science”: The institution of “Open Science” as a cause of scientific and economic inequalities among countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 42-56.
    8. Lars Herberholz & Berthold U. Wigger, 2020. "Efficiency of European Universities: A Comparison of Peers," CESifo Working Paper Series 8044, CESifo.
    9. Müller, Harry & Dilger, Alexander, 2013. "Der Einfluss des Forschungsschwerpunkts auf den Zitationserfolg: Eine empirische Untersuchung anhand der Gesamtpublikationen deutschsprachiger Hochschullehrer für BWL," Discussion Papers of the Institute for Organisational Economics 1/2013, University of Münster, Institute for Organisational Economics.
    10. Wang, Jian, 2014. "Unpacking the Matthew effect in citations," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 329-339.

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    JEL classification:

    • B4 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology
    • B54 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Feminist Economics
    • C81 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation

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