The Rise of Research Teams: Benefits and Costs in Economics

Benjamin Jones

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2021, vol. 35, issue 2, 191-216

Abstract: Economics research is increasingly performed in teams, and team-authored work has a large and increasing impact advantage. This article considers the benefits and costs of this "rise of teams." Among its benefits, teamwork allows individuals to aggregate knowledge in productive and novel ways. For example, as knowledge accumulates over time, individuals become narrower in their expertise, and teamwork is a natural organizational approach to aggregating expertise and maintaining one's reach. But teamwork also brings costs. For example, teamwork divides and obscures credit, which is central to the reward system of science. By clouding credit assignment, teamwork can undermine individual career progression and exacerbate issues of bias. In addressing the rise of teamwork, this paper further considers institutional innovations, especially those inspired by the hard sciences, that can help limit the costs teamwork imposes while realizing the benefits.

JEL-codes: D61 M54 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/jep.35.2.191 (application/pdf)
https://doi.org/10.3886/E133141V1 (text/html)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/jep.35.2.191.appx (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/jep.35.2.191.ds (application/zip)

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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:jecper:v:35:y:2021:i:2:p:191-216

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

DOI: 10.1257/jep.35.2.191

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Perspectives is currently edited by Enrico Moretti

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