The Collapse of the Soviet Union and the Productivity of American Mathematicians

George Borjas and Kirk Doran

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2012, vol. 127, issue 3, 1143-1203

Abstract: It has been difficult to open up the black box of knowledge production. We use unique international data on the publications, citations, and affiliations of mathematicians to examine the impact of a large, post-1992 influx of Soviet mathematicians on the productivity of their U.S. counterparts. We find a negative productivity effect on those mathematicians whose research overlapped with that of the Soviets. We also document an increased mobility rate (to lower quality institutions and out of active publishing) and a reduced likelihood of producing "home run" papers. Although the total product of the preexisting American mathematicians shrank, the Soviet contribution to American mathematics filled in the gap. However, there is no evidence that the Soviets greatly increased the size of the "mathematics pie." Finally, we find that there are significant international differences in the productivity effects of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and these international differences can be explained by both differences in the size of the émigré flow into the various countries and in how connected each country is to the global market for mathematical publications. JEL Codes: O31, J61. Copyright 2012, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (270)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/qje/qjs015 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Chapter: THE COLLAPSE OF THE SOVIET UNION AND THE PRODUCTIVITY OF AMERICAN MATHEMATICIANS (2021)
Working Paper: The Collapse of the Soviet Union and the Productivity of American Mathematicians (2012)
Working Paper: The Collapse of the Soviet Union and the Productivity of American Mathematicians (2012)
Working Paper: The Collapse of the Soviet Union and the Productivity of American Mathematicians (2012)
Working Paper: The Collapse of the Soviet Union and the Productivity of American Mathematicians (2012)
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:127:y:2012:i:3:p:1143-1203

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics is currently edited by Robert J. Barro, Lawrence F. Katz, Nathan Nunn, Andrei Shleifer and Stefanie Stantcheva

More articles in The Quarterly Journal of Economics from President and Fellows of Harvard College
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().