IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/labeco/v77y2022ics0927537121000270.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Influence in economics and aging

Author

Listed:
  • Jelnov, Pavel
  • Weiss, Yoram

Abstract

We study the relationship between age and influence in a closed group of leading economists. We consider, as a measure of influence, monthly RePEc rankings and address the dynamics of rankings within the top group as a function of age. We find that the rankings peak at age 60 or 30 years after Ph.D. graduation. Differently from other leaders, current and future Nobel laureates do not experience deterioration of the rankings if their works and citations are discounted by recursive impact factor, and their ranking with respect to the breadth of citations across fields improves at old age.

Suggested Citation

  • Jelnov, Pavel & Weiss, Yoram, 2022. "Influence in economics and aging," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:77:y:2022:i:c:s0927537121000270
    DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2021.101992
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537121000270
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.labeco.2021.101992?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bruce A. Weinberg & David W. Galenson, 2019. "Creative Careers: The Life Cycles of Nobel Laureates in Economics," De Economist, Springer, vol. 167(3), pages 221-239, September.
    2. Richard Desjardins & Arne Jonas Warnke, 2012. "Ageing and Skills: A Review and Analysis of Skill Gain and Skill Loss Over the Lifespan and Over Time," OECD Education Working Papers 72, OECD Publishing.
    3. Hendrik P. van Dalen, 1999. "The Golden Age of Nobel Economists," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 43(2), pages 19-35, October.
    4. Yoram WEISS, 2015. "Gary Becker on Human Capital," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(1), pages 27-31, March.
    5. Bruce A. Weinberg & David W. Galenson, 2019. "Correction to: Creative Careers: The Life Cycles of Nobel Laureates in Economics," De Economist, Springer, vol. 167(3), pages 241-241, September.
    6. Gary S. Becker, 1962. "Investment in Human Capital: A Theoretical Analysis," NBER Chapters, in: Investment in Human Beings, pages 9-49, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Green, David A. & Riddell, W. Craig, 2013. "Ageing and literacy skills: Evidence from Canada, Norway and the United States," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 16-29.
    8. Josh Angrist & Pierre Azoulay & Glenn Ellison & Ryan Hill & Susan Feng Lu, 2020. "Inside Job or Deep Impact? Extramural Citations and the Influence of Economic Scholarship," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(1), pages 3-52, March.
    9. Michael Rauber & Heinrich W. Ursprung, 2008. "Life Cycle and Cohort Productivity in Economic Research: The Case of Germany," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 9(4), pages 431-456, November.
    10. Peter J. Boettke & Alexander Fink & Daniel J. Smith, 2012. "The Impact of N obel P rize Winners in Economics: Mainline vs. Mainstream," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(5), pages 1219-1249, November.
    11. Magnus Henrekson & Daniel Waldenström, 2011. "How Should Research Performance Be Measured? A Study Of Swedish Economists," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 79(6), pages 1139-1156, December.
    12. Pedro Garcia Duarte, 2009. "The Growing of Ramsey's Growth Model," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 41(5), pages 161-181, Supplemen.
    13. Damien Besancenot & Abdelghani Maddi, 2019. "Should citations be weighted to assess the influence of an academic article?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 435(1), pages 435-445.
    14. KRAPF, Matthias & SCHLÄPFER, Jörg, 2012. "How Nobel Laureates Would Perform In The Handelsblatt Ranking," Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 12(3).
    15. S. R. Goldberg & H. Anthony & T. S. Evans, 2015. "Modelling citation networks," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(3), pages 1577-1604, December.
    16. Vegard Skirbekk, 2004. "Age and Individual Productivity: A Literature Survey," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 2(1), pages 133-154.
    17. David F Klosik & Stefan Bornholdt, 2014. "The Citation Wake of Publications Detects Nobel Laureates' Papers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(12), pages 1-9, December.
    18. Michael J. Hilmer & Michael R. Ransom & Christiana E. Hilmer, 2015. "Fame and the fortune of academic economists: How the market rewards influential research in economics," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(2), pages 430-452, October.
    19. repec:bla:germec:v:9:y:2008:i::p:431-456 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Lutz Bornmann & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2019. "Normalisation of citation impact in economics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(2), pages 841-884, August.
    21. Ho Fai Chan & Laura Gleeson & Benno Torgler, 2014. "Awards before and after the Nobel Prize: A Matthew effect and/or a ticket to one’s own funeral?," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(3), pages 210-220.
    22. Tove Faber Frandsen & Jeppe Nicolaisen, 2013. "The ripple effect: Citation chain reactions of a nobel prize," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(3), pages 437-447, March.
    23. Orazbayev, Sultan, 2017. "Exploring the world of Economics through RePEc data," MPRA Paper 81963, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    24. Börsch-Supan, Axel & Weiss, Matthias, 2016. "Productivity and age: Evidence from work teams at the assembly line," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 7(C), pages 30-42.
    25. Barrett, Garry F. & Riddell, W. Craig, 2016. "Ageing and Literacy Skills: Evidence from IALS, ALL and PIAAC," IZA Discussion Papers 10017, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    26. Clément Bosquet & Pierre-Philippe Combes, 2013. "Are academics who publish more also more cited? Individual determinants of publication and citation records," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 97(3), pages 831-857, December.
    27. Benjamin Jones & E.J. Reedy & Bruce A. Weinberg, 2014. "Age and Scientific Genius," NBER Working Papers 19866, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    28. Jonathan B. Wight, 2002. "The Rise of Adam Smith: Articles and Citations, 1970-1997," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 55-82, Spring.
    29. Sam Schulhofer‐Wohl, 2018. "The age‐time‐cohort problem and the identification of structural parameters in life‐cycle models," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(2), pages 643-658, July.
    30. Simon Ek & Magnus Henrekson, 2019. "The Geography and Concentration of Authorship in the Top Five: Implications For European Economics," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 66(2), pages 215-245, May.
    31. Pierre Azoulay & Joshua S. Graff Zivin & Jialan Wang, 2010. "Superstar Extinction," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(2), pages 549-589.
    32. Yves Gingras & Vincent Larivière & Benoît Macaluso & Jean-Pierre Robitaille, 2008. "The Effects of Aging on Researchers' Publication and Citation Patterns," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 3(12), pages 1-8, December.
    33. Motty Perry & Philip J. Reny, 2016. "How to Count Citations If You Must," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(9), pages 2722-2741, September.
    34. Caroline S Wagner & Edwin Horlings & Travis A Whetsell & Pauline Mattsson & Katarina Nordqvist, 2015. "Do Nobel Laureates Create Prize-Winning Networks? An Analysis of Collaborative Research in Physiology or Medicine," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(7), pages 1-13, July.
    35. Ho Fai Chan & Ali Sina Önder & Benno Torgler, 2015. "Do Nobel laureates change their patterns of collaboration following prize reception?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(3), pages 2215-2235, December.
    36. Baffes, John & Vamvakidis, Athanasios, 2011. "Are you too young for the Nobel Prize?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(10), pages 1345-1353.
    37. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2018. "Citations in Economics: Measurement, Uses, and Impacts," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(1), pages 115-156, March.
    38. Pierre-André Chiappori & Steven D. Levitt, 2003. "An Examination of the Influence of Theory and Individual Theorists on Empirical Research in Microeconomics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 151-155, May.
    39. Rablen, Matthew D. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2008. "Mortality and immortality: The Nobel Prize as an experiment into the effect of status upon longevity," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 1462-1471, December.
    40. Matthew J Michalska-Smith & Stefano Allesina, 2017. "And, not or: Quality, quantity in scientific publishing," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(6), pages 1-12, June.
    41. Samuel Bjork & Avner Offer & Gabriel Söderberg, 2014. "Time series citation data: the Nobel Prize in economics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(1), pages 185-196, January.
    42. Weiss, Yoram, 2015. "Gary Becker On Human Capital," Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(1), pages 27-31, March.
    43. repec:wly:soecon:v:82:2:y:2015:p:430-452 is not listed on IDEAS
    44. Clément Bosquet & Pierre-Philippe Combes, 2013. "Are academics who publish more also more cited? Individual determinants of publication and citation records," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 97(3), pages 831-857, December.
    45. Tove Faber Frandsen & Jeppe Nicolaisen, 2013. "The ripple effect: Citation chain reactions of a nobel prize," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(3), pages 437-447, March.
    46. Gary M. Anderson & David M. Levy & Robert D. Tollison, 1989. "The Half-Life of Dead Economists," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 22(1), pages 174-183, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhang, Wenwu & Luo, Le & Gu, Lianglian, 2023. "An empirical study on urban integration of Chinese elderly individuals with migration in periods of economic transformation: Internal mechanism and economic effects," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 170-181.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2018. "Citations in Economics: Measurement, Uses, and Impacts," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(1), pages 115-156, March.
    2. Wen Lou & Jiangen He & Lingxin Zhang & Zhijie Zhu & Yongjun Zhu, 2023. "Support behind the scenes: the relationship between acknowledgement, coauthor, and citation in Nobel articles," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(10), pages 5767-5790, October.
    3. Elisabeth Maria Schlagberger & Lutz Bornmann & Johann Bauer, 2016. "At what institutions did Nobel laureates do their prize-winning work? An analysis of biographical information on Nobel laureates from 1994 to 2014," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 723-767, November.
    4. Daniel S. Hamermesh & Lea‐Rachel Kosnik, 2024. "Why do older scholars slow down?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(1), pages 488-499, January.
    5. Yihui Lan & Kenneth W. Clements & Zong Ken Chai, 2023. "How Productive Are Economics and Finance PhDs?," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 56(4), pages 442-461, December.
    6. Pandelis Mitsis, 2022. "The Nobel Prize time gap," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-11, December.
    7. Kong, Ling & Wang, Dongbo, 2020. "Comparison of citations and attention of cover and non-cover papers," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4).
    8. Mingyang Wang & Zhenyu Wang & Guangsheng Chen, 2019. "Which can better predict the future success of articles? Bibliometric indices or alternative metrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(3), pages 1575-1595, June.
    9. Peter Burridge & J. Paul Elhorst & Katarina Zigova, 2016. "Group Interaction in Research and the Use of General Nesting Spatial Models," Advances in Econometrics, in: Spatial Econometrics: Qualitative and Limited Dependent Variables, volume 37, pages 223-258, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    10. Iman Tahamtan & Askar Safipour Afshar & Khadijeh Ahamdzadeh, 2016. "Factors affecting number of citations: a comprehensive review of the literature," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(3), pages 1195-1225, June.
    11. Karsten Wasiluk, 2014. "Technology Adoption and Demographic Change," Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz 2014-05, Department of Economics, University of Konstanz.
    12. R. Bjørk, 2019. "The age at which Noble Prize research is conducted," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(2), pages 931-939, May.
    13. R. Bjørk, 2020. "The journals in physics that publish Nobel Prize research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(2), pages 817-823, February.
    14. Bruno S. Frey & Anthony Gullo, 2020. "Sic transit gloria mundi: What remains of famous economists after their deaths?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(1), pages 283-298, April.
    15. Besancenot, Damien & Huynh, Kim & Serranito, Francisco, 2017. "Co-authorship and research productivity in economics: Assessing the assortative matching hypothesis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 61-80.
    16. Iván Aranzales & Ho Fai Chan & Benno Torgler, 2023. "Finally! How time lapse in Nobel Prize reception affects emotionality in the Nobel Prize banquet speeches," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(7), pages 4089-4115, July.
    17. Syed Hasan & Robert Breunig, 2021. "Article length and citation outcomes," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 7583-7608, September.
    18. Jingda Ding & Yifan Chen & Chao Liu, 2023. "Exploring the research features of Nobel laureates in Physics based on the semantic similarity measurement," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(9), pages 5247-5275, September.
    19. Jakub Rybacki & Dobromił Serwa, 2021. "What Makes a Successful Scientist in a Central Bank? Evidence From the RePEc Database," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 13(3), pages 331-357, September.
    20. Katarina Zigova, 2017. "Specifying Social Weight Matrices of Researcher Networks: The Case of Academic Economists," Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz 2017-10, Department of Economics, University of Konstanz.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    aging; citations; influence; Nobel; research productivity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:77:y:2022:i:c:s0927537121000270. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/labeco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.