Superstar Extinction
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."
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| Length: | |
| Date of creation: | Dec 2008 |
| Publication status: | published as Pierre Azoulay & Joshua S. Graff Zivin & Jialan Wang, 2010. "Superstar Extinction," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 125(2), pages 549-589, May. |
| Handle: | RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14577 |
| Note: | PR |
| Contact details of provider: | Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A. Phone: 617-868-3900 Web page: http://www.nber.org Email: More information through EDIRC
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References listed on IDEAS
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- Benner, Mary & Waldfogel, Joel, 2008.
"Close to you? Bias and precision in patent-based measures of technological proximity,"
Research Policy,
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- 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.
- Melamed, Ran & Shiff, Gil & Trajtenberg, Manuel, 2006. "The 'Names Game': Harnessing Inventors Patent Data for Economic Research," CEPR Discussion Papers 5833, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
- Manuel Trajtenberg & Gil Shiff & Ran Melamed, 2006. "The "Names Game": Harnessing Inventors' Patent Data for Economic Research," NBER Working Papers 12479, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- 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.
- Pierre Azoulay & Andrew Stellman & Joshua Graff Zivin, 2006. "PublicationHarvester: An Open-Source Software Tool for Science Policy Research," NBER Working Papers 12039, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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