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What Makes a Productive Ph.D. Student?

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  • Alberto Corsini

    (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur)

  • Michele Pezzoni

    (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur)

  • Fabiana Visentin

Abstract

This paper investigates how the social environment to which a Ph.D. student is exposed during her training relates to her scientific productivity. We investigate how supervisor and peers' characteristics are associated with the student's publication quantity, quality, and co-authorship network size. Unique to our study, we cover the entire Ph.D. student population of a European country for all the STEM fields analyzing 77,143 students who graduated in France between 2000 and 2014. We find that having a productive, mid-career, low-experienced, female supervisor who benefits from a national grant is positively associated with the student's productivity. Furthermore, we find that having few productive freshman peers and at least one female peer is positively associated with the student's productivity. Interestingly, we find heterogeneity in our results when breaking down the student population by field of research.
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Suggested Citation

  • Alberto Corsini & Michele Pezzoni & Fabiana Visentin, 2021. "What Makes a Productive Ph.D. Student?," Post-Print halshs-03564238, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-03564238
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    Cited by:

    1. Plantec, Quentin & Cabanes, Benjamin & le Masson, Pascal & Weil, Benoit, 2023. "Early-career academic engagement in university–industry collaborative PhDs: Research orientation and project performance," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(9).
    2. Sofia Patsali & Michele Pezzoni & Fabiana Visentin, 2021. "The Impact of Research Independence on PhD Students' Careers: Large-scale Evidence from France," GREDEG Working Papers 2021-35, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.

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    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General

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