Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time?

Pierre Azoulay, Christian Fons-Rosen and Joshua Graff Zivin

American Economic Review, 2019, vol. 109, issue 8, 2889-2920

Abstract: We examine how the premature death of eminent life scientists alters the vitality of their fields. While the flow of articles by collaborators into affected fields decreases after the death of a star scientist, the flow of articles by non-collaborators increases markedly. This surge in contributions from outsiders draws upon a different scientific corpus and is disproportionately likely to be highly cited. While outsiders appear reluctant to challenge leadership within a field when the star is alive, the loss of a luminary provides an opportunity for fields to evolve in new directions that advance the frontier of knowledge.

JEL-codes: I23 O31 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.20161574
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (72)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20161574 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=10333 (application/zip)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20161574.appx (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20161574.ds (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time? (2016)
Working Paper: Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time? (2015)
Working Paper: Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time? (2015)
Working Paper: Does science advance one funeral at a time? (2015)
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:aea:aecrev:v:109:y:2019:i:8:p:2889-2920

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review is currently edited by Esther Duflo

More articles in American Economic Review from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().