Scientific collaboration networks: how little differences can matter a lot

Antoni Rubí-Barceló ()

No 30, DEA Working Papers from Universitat de les Illes Balears, Departament d'Economía Aplicada

Abstract: Empirical studies such as Goyal, van der Leij and Moraga (2006) or Newman (2004) show that scientific collaboration networks present a highly unequal and hierarchical distribution of links. This implies that some researchers can be much more active and productive than others and, consequently, they can enjoy a much better scientific eputation. One may think that big intrinsical differences among researchers can constitute the main driving force behind these huge inequalities. We propose a model that show how almost identical individuals self-organize themselves in a very unequal and hierarchical structure as is observed in the real-world co-authorship networks. In consequence, this model provides an incentives-based explanation of that empirical evidence.

Keywords: network formation game; scientific collaboration; co-authroship networks; inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Z13 D85 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations Track citations by RSS feed

Downloads: (external link)
http://dea.uib.es/download?filename=w30.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ubi:deawps:30

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in DEA Working Papers from Universitat de les Illes Balears, Departament d'Economía Aplicada
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Xisco Oliver ().