Peer Effects in Science: Evidence from the Dismissal of Scientists in Nazi Germany

Fabian Waldinger

The Review of Economic Studies, 2012, vol. 79, issue 2, 838-861

Abstract: This paper analyses peer effects among university scientists. Specifically, it investigates whether the quality and the number of peers affect the productivity of researchers in physics, chemistry, and mathematics. The usual endogeneity problems related to estimating peer effects are addressed by using the dismissal of scientists by the Nazi government in 1933 as a source of exogenous variation in the peer group of scientists staying in Germany. To investigate localized peer effects, I construct a new panel data set covering the universe of scientists at the German universities from 1925 to 1938 from historical sources. I find no evidence for peer effects at the local level. Even very high-quality scientists do not affect the productivity of their local peers. Copyright 2012, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (248)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/restud/rdr029 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Peer effects in science: evidence from the dismissal of scientists in Nazi Germany (2012)
Working Paper: Peer Effects in Science: Evidence from the Dismissal of Scientists in Nazi Germany (2012)
Working Paper: Peer Effects in Science - Evidence from the Dismissal of Scientists in Nazi Germany (2009)
Working Paper: Peer effects in science: evidence from the dismissal of scientists in Nazi Germany (2009)
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:restud:v:79:y:2012:i:2:p:838-861

Access Statistics for this article

The Review of Economic Studies is currently edited by Thomas Chaney, Xavier d’Haultfoeuille, Andrea Galeotti, Bård Harstad, Nir Jaimovich, Katrine Loken, Elias Papaioannou, Vincent Sterk and Noam Yuchtman

More articles in The Review of Economic Studies from Review of Economic Studies Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().