The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it investigates how the characteristics of a research team relate to the probability of generating a novel article. Second, once a novel article has been generated, it investigates the moderating effects of the team's characteristics on the impact of the article. We consider 42,493 teams of researchers publishing a corresponding number of articles in 273 reputed journals in physics from 2005 to 2009. We find that team experience and team specialization are negatively associated with the probability of generating a novel article. On the contrary, having already written novel articles in the past is positively associated with the probability of generating a novel article. When analyzing the impact of novel articles, we find that a novel article published by an experienced team receives fewer citations than a novel article published by a team with less experience and is published in a lower impact factor journal. We also find that a novel article published by a large established team of researchers receives more citations than a novel article published by a small newly formed team. The team size is also positively related to the impact factor of the journal in which the novel article is published.
Authors
- Acknowledgements & Disclosure
- We are thankful to the participants of the 14th virtual workshop on “The Organisation, Economics and Policy of Scientific Research”, Munich, 9-10 July 2020; to the participants of the seminar held at the OECD department for “Science, Technology and Innovation”, Paris, 4 December 2018; and to the participants to the 37éme Journées de Microéconomie Appliquée (JMA), Annecy, 3-4 June 2021. We also thank the participants to the internal OST seminar, Paris, 14 January 2020, for their comments and suggestions. Finally, we would like to thank Agenor Lahatte (OST-Hcéres) and Wilfriedo Mescheba (OST-Hcéres) for providing us with two measures of articles’ interdisciplinarity and impact that have been used in the robustness checks of our empirical analyses. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3386/w33064
- Pages
- 34
- Published in
- United States of America
Table of Contents
- NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES 1
- GENERATION AND IMPACT OF NOVEL ARTICLES IN PHYSICS 1
- Jacques Mairesse Michele Pezzoni Frederique Sachwald 1
- Working Paper 33064 httpwww.nber.orgpapersw33064 1
- NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge MA 02138 October 2024 1
- Generation and Impact of Novel Articles in Physics Jacques Mairesse Michele Pezzoni and Frederique Sachwald NBER Working Paper No. 33064 October 2024 JEL No. I23 O31 2
- Jacques Mairesse IP Paris ENSAE 5 Avenue Henry Le Chatelier TSA 96642 91764 Palaiseau Cedex France and UNU-MERIT Maastricht University and Banque de France and also NBER mairesseensae.fr 2
- Frederique Sachwald 2 rue Albert Einstein Paris 75013 France frederique.sachwaldhceres.fr 2
- Observatoire des Sciences et Techniques HCERES 2
- 1. Introduction 3
- 2. Effect of team characteristics on the generation of a novel article and its impact 4
- 3. Data and variables 6
- Table 2 10 journals publishing the largest number of articles. 8
- Table 3 Descriptive statistics of the dependent and independent variables considered in the regression analysis. 11
- 4. Results 12
- Table 4 Probability of generating a novel article 13
- Table 5 Team characteristics moderating the marginal effect of publishing a novel article. 14
- Figure 1 Team characteristics moderating the marginal effect of publishing a novel article . 16
- Figure 2 Team characteristics moderating the marginal effect of publishing a non-novel article . 16
- Figure 3 Novel article marginal effect simulated for two teams. 17
- 5. Conclusion 19
- References 22
- Appendix A 24
- Appendix B 25
- Table B1 Novel article marginal effect on the article impact. 25
- Figure B1 Novel article marginal effect on the article impact. 26
- Appendix C 27
- Table C1 Novel article generation. 27
- Table C2 Team characteristics moderating the marginal effect of publishing a novel article. 28
- Appendix D 29
- Table D1 Novel article generation. A loose definition of novel article. 29
- Table D2 Team characteristics moderating the marginal effect of publishing a novel article. A loose definition of novel article. 30
- Appendix E 31
- Table E1 Normalized journal impact 31
- Appendix F 32
- Table F1 Probability of generating a novel article 32
- Table F2 Team characteristics moderating the marginal effect of publishing a novel article. 33
- Appendix G 34
- Table G1 Team characteristics moderating the marginal effect of publishing a novel article including the number of countries. 34
