IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jhucap/doi10.1086-703160.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Age and the Trying Out of New Ideas

Author

Listed:
  • Mikko Packalen
  • Jay Bhattacharya

Abstract

The aging of the scientific workforce and graying of grant recipients are central concerns in science policy. These trends are potentially important because older scientists are often seen as less open to new ideas than younger scientists. Here we put this hypothesis to an empirical test. A text analysis of 20 million biomedical research articles shows that papers published by younger researchers are more likely to build on new ideas. Collaboration with an experienced researcher also matters. Papers with a young first author and a more experienced last author are more likely to try out newer ideas than papers published by other team configurations. Our results buttress the case for funding young researchers but also provide a caution against unconditional idolatry of youth over experience.

Suggested Citation

  • Mikko Packalen & Jay Bhattacharya, 2019. "Age and the Trying Out of New Ideas," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(2), pages 341-373.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jhucap:doi:10.1086/703160
    DOI: 10.1086/703160
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/703160
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/703160
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/703160?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 search for a different version of it.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Fons-Rosen, Christian & Gaule, Patrick & Hrendash, Taras, 2023. "Why Has Science Become an Old Man's Game?," IZA Discussion Papers 16365, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Jay Bhattacharya & Mikko Packalen, 2020. "Stagnation and Scientific Incentives," NBER Working Papers 26752, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. 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.
    4. Liang, Zhentao & Ba, Zhichao & Mao, Jin & Li, Gang, 2023. "Research complexity increases with scientists’ academic age: Evidence from library and information science," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    5. Wei Cheng & Bruce A. Weinberg, 2021. "Marginalized and Overlooked? Minoritized Groups and the Adoption of New Scientific Ideas," NBER Working Papers 29179, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Zhiya Zuo & Kang Zhao, 2021. "Understanding and predicting future research impact at different career stages—A social network perspective," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 72(4), pages 454-472, April.
    7. Zhongyi Wang & Keying Wang & Jiyue Liu & Jing Huang & Haihua Chen, 2022. "Measuring the innovation of method knowledge elements in scientific literature," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(5), pages 2803-2827, May.

    More about this item

    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:ucp:jhucap:doi:10.1086/703160. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JHC .

    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.