Publish or Perish: Selective Attrition as a Unifying Explanation for Patterns in Innovation over the Career

Huifeng Yu, Gerald Marschke, Matthew Ross, Joseph Staudt and Bruce Weinberg

Journal of Human Resources, 2023, vol. 58, issue 4, 1307-1346

Abstract: Studying 5.6 million biomedical science articles published over three decades, we reconcile conflicts in a long-standing interdisciplinary literature on scientists’ life-cycle productivity by controlling for selective attrition and distinguishing between research quantity and quality. While research quality declines monotonically over the career, this decline is easily overlooked because higher “ability” authors have longer publishing careers. Our results have implications for broader questions of human capital accumulation over the career and federal research policies that shift funding to early-career researchers—while funding researchers at their most creative, these policies must be undertaken carefully because young researchers are less “able” on average.

JEL-codes: I23 J10 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
Note: DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.59.2.1219-10630R1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uwp:jhriss:v:58:y:2023:i:4:p:1307-1346

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