The diffusion of scientific knowledge across time and space
Subtitle: evidence from professional transitions for the superstars of medicine
By: Pierre Azoulay, Joshua S. Graff Zivin, Bhaven N. Sampat
Contributors: Zivin, Joshua S. Graff; Sampat, Bhaven N.; National Bureau of Economic Research
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 16683; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) -- working paper no. 16683.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Description: "Are scientific knowledge flows embodied in individuals, or "in the air"? To answer this question, we measure the effect of labor mobility in a sample of 9,483 elite academic life scientists on the citation trajectories associated with individual articles (resp.  patents) published (resp.  granted) before the scientist moved to a new institution.  We find that article-to-article citations from the scientific community at the superstar's origin location are barely affected by their departure.  In contrast, article-to-patent citations, and especially patent-to-patent citations, decline at the origin location following a star's departure, suggesting that spillovers from academia to industry are not completely disembodied.  We also find that article-to-article citations at the superstar's destination location markedly increase after they move.  Our results suggest that, to be realized, knowledge flows to industry may require more face-to-face interaction than those to academics.  Moreover, to the extent that academic scientists do not internalize the effect of their location decisions on the circulation of ideas, our results raise the intriguing possibility that barriers to labor mobility in academic science limit the recombination of individual bits of knowledge, resulting in a suboptimal rate of scientific exploration"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 4/19/2011.

Includes bibliographical references.

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