Co-authorship and Academic Productivity in Economics: Interaction Maps from the Complex Networks Approach

José Alberto Molina, Alberto Alcolea, Alfredo Ferrer, David Iñiguez, Alejandro Rivero, Gonzalo Ruiz and Alfonso Tarancón
Additional contact information
Alberto Alcolea: Kampal Data Solutions S.L.
Alfredo Ferrer: Instituto de Biocomputación y Fisica de Sistemas Complejos (BIFI)
David Iñiguez: ARAID
Alejandro Rivero: Instituto de Biocomputación y Fisica de Sistemas Complejos (BIFI)
Gonzalo Ruiz: Kampal Data Solutions S.L.
Alfonso Tarancón: University of Zaragoza

No 10008, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We explore the relationship between collaborations in writing papers and the academic productivity of economists and, particularly, we describe the magnitude and intensity of co-authorship among economists. To that end, we employ interaction maps from Complex Systems methods to study the global properties of specific networks. We use 8,253 JCR papers from ISI-WOK, published by 5,188 economists from Spanish institutions, and their co-authors, up to 8,202 researchers, from 2002 to 2014, to identify and determine the collaborative structure of economics research in Spain, with its primary communities and figures of influence. Our results indicate that centrality and productivity are correlated, particularly with respect to a local estimator of centrality (page rank), and we provide certain recommendations, such as promoting interactions among highly productive authors who have few co-authors with other researchers in their environment, or recommending that authors who may be well-positioned but minimally productive strive to improve their productivity.

Keywords: co-authorship; academic productivity; economists; interaction maps; complex networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A11 C45 C63 D85 I23 Y91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2016-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-sog
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published as 'Network analysis to measure academic performance in Economics' in: Empirical Economics, 2020, 58, 995 - 1018

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Working Paper: Co-authorship and Academic Productivity in Economics: Interaction Maps from the Complex Networks Approach (2016)
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