Stars as catalysts: an event-study analysis of the impact of star-scientist recruitment on local research performance in a small open economy

John McHale, Jason Harold, Jen-Chung Mei, Akhil Sasidharan and Anil Yadav

Journal of Economic Geography, 2023, vol. 23, issue 2, 343-369

Abstract: There is increasing interest among policymakers in small open economies in the use of star-scientist recruitment policies to catalyse the development of local clusters in targeted research areas. We use Scopus to assemble a dataset on over 1.4 million publications and subsequent citations for Denmark, Ireland and New Zealand from 1990 to 2017. An event-study model is used to estimate the dynamic effects of a star arrival on quality-adjusted research output at both the department and matched individual incumbent levels. Star arrivals are associated with statistically significant increases in department output (excluding the output of the star) of between 12% and 25% after 4 years. At the incumbent level, star arrivals lead to an approximately 5% increase in individual output, with substantially larger increases for incumbents who co-author with the star.

Keywords: Star scientists; small open economies; innovation; scientist mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I23 J24 J61 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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