IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ssa/lemwps/2014-19.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Citations are Forever: Modeling Constrained Network Formation

Author

Listed:
  • Pietro Battiston

Abstract

Determining the extent to which citation flows, and hence bibliometric indicators based on them, reflect some intrinsic value of scientific works is an important task made very difficult by endogeneity issues. This paper presents an approach which allows to go beyond the abundant anecdotal evidence by testing whether the citation behavior is free from environmental factors. The hypothesis of independence is strongly rejected, providing causal evidence of a Matthew effect at work: namely, the publication of a new work on behalf of an author increases the flow of citations to previous works. Such result is a step towards the estimation of biases affecting bibliometric indicators, at least when interpreted as measures of scientific productivity. The study is based on a novel framework for the study of endogenous network growth subject to constraints. Constraints can be both positive and negative, and change in time depending on the actions of the agents. The framework is not limited to citation networks, and can be applied to any context in which the formation of a link inhibits or implies the formation of another one.

Suggested Citation

  • Pietro Battiston, 2014. "Citations are Forever: Modeling Constrained Network Formation," LEM Papers Series 2014/19, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2014/19
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lem.sssup.it/WPLem/files/2014-19.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Galeotti, Andrea & Goyal, Sanjeev & Kamphorst, Jurjen, 2006. "Network formation with heterogeneous players," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 353-372, February.
    2. Herings, P. Jean-Jacques & Mauleon, Ana & Vannetelbosch, Vincent, 2009. "Farsightedly stable networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 526-541, November.
    3. Giulio Cainelli & Mario Maggioni & Erika Uberti & Annunziata De Felice, 2010. "The strength of strong ties: Co-authorship and productivity among Italian economists," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0125, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    4. Mantovani, Marco & Kirchsteiger, Georg & Mauleon, Ana & Vannetelbosch, Vincent, 2011. "Myopic or Farsighted? An Experiment on Network Formation," Climate Change and Sustainable Development 108256, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    5. Dutta, Bhaskar & Mutuswami, Suresh, 1997. "Stable Networks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 322-344, October.
      • Dutta, Bhaskar & Mutuswami, Suresh, 1996. "Stable Networks," Working Papers 971, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
    6. Pierre Azoulay & Toby Stuart & Yanbo Wang, 2014. "Matthew: Effect or Fable?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(1), pages 92-109, January.
    7. S. Redner, 1998. "How popular is your paper? An empirical study of the citation distribution," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 4(2), pages 131-134, July.
    8. Sanjeev Goyal & Marco J. van der Leij & José Luis Moraga-Gonzalez, 2006. "Economics: An Emerging Small World," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(2), pages 403-432, April.
    9. Goeree, Jacob K. & Riedl, Arno & Ule, Aljaz, 2009. "In search of stars: Network formation among heterogeneous agents," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 445-466, November.
    10. Hans Haller & Jurjen Kamphorst & Sudipta Sarangi, 2007. "(Non-)existence and Scope of Nash Networks," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 31(3), pages 597-604, June.
    11. Luca Pratelli & Alberto Baccini & Lucio Barabesi & Marzia Marcheselli, 2012. "Statistical Analysis of the Hirsch Index," Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics;Finnish Statistical Society;Norwegian Statistical Association;Swedish Statistical Association, vol. 39(4), pages 681-694, December.
    12. Venkatesh Bala & Sanjeev Goyal, 2000. "A Noncooperative Model of Network Formation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(5), pages 1181-1230, September.
    13. Henk F. Moed & Eugene Garfield, 2004. "In basic science the percentage of “authoritative” references decreases as bibliographies become shorter," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 60(3), pages 295-303, August.
    14. Haller, Hans, 2012. "Network extension," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 166-172.
    15. Andrea Galeotti, 2006. "One-way flow networks: the role of heterogeneity," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 29(1), pages 163-179, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pietro Battiston, 2016. "Constrained Network Formation," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 2(3), pages 347-362, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bibliometric indicators; Endogenous growth; Matthew effect; Research evaluation;

    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:ssa:lemwps:2014/19. 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: (). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/labssit.html .

    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.