Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time?
Name
aer.20161574.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1.1 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
54034fe9482027fed9a5abb4384fb8da
Author(s)
Azoulay, Pierre
Fons-Rosen, Christian
Zivin, Joshua S. Graff
Date Issued
August 2019
Journal
American Economic Review
Publisher
American Economic Association
Citation
Azoulay, Pierre et al. "Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time?" American Economic Review 109, 8 (August 2019): 2889-2920
Version
Final published version
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.
MIT Department
Sloan School of Management
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20161574
