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Lost in the Storm: The Academic Collaborations that Went Missing in Hurricane Isaac

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Listed:
  • Raquel Campos
  • Fernanda L. L. de Leon
  • Ben McQuillin

Abstract

By exploiting the cancellation of the 2012 American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, we investigate the role of conferences in facilitating academic collaboration. We assembled datasets comprising 17,468 academics and 86 million pairs of conference participants. In difference-in-differences analysis, we find the conference cancellation led to a decrease in individuals' likelihood of co-authoring an article with another attendant by 18 percent. Moreover, collaborations formed among attendants of (occurring) conferences are associated with more successful co-publications: an effect which is sharpest for teams that are new or non-collocated. These findings are novel and demonstrate the importance of conferences in scientific production.

Suggested Citation

  • Raquel Campos & Fernanda L. L. de Leon & Ben McQuillin, 2017. "Lost in the Storm: The Academic Collaborations that Went Missing in Hurricane Isaac," Studies in Economics 1707, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    • Handle: RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:1707
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    Cited by:

    1. Jens Foerderer, 2020. "Interfirm Exchange and Innovation in Platform Ecosystems: Evidence from Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(10), pages 4772-4787, October.
    2. Ina Ganguli & Fabian Waldinger, 2024. "War and Science in Ukraine," Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 165-188.
    3. Laura Hospido & Carlos Sanz, 2021. "Gender Gaps in the Evaluation of Research: Evidence from Submissions to Economics Conferences," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(3), pages 590-618, June.
    4. Asier Minondo, 2020. "Who presents and where? An analysis of research seminars in US economics departments," Papers 2001.10561, arXiv.org, revised May 2020.
    5. Biermann, Marcus, 2021. "Remote talks: changes to economics seminars during Covid-19," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114429, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Önder, Ali Sina & Schweitzer, Sascha & Yilmazkuday, Hakan, 2021. "Specialization, field distance, and quality in economists’ collaborations," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4).
    7. Enrico Berkes & Peter Nencka, 2019. "‘Novel’ Ideas: The Effects of Carnegie Libraries on Innovative Activities," 2019 Meeting Papers 1315, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Pham, Tho & Talavera, Oleksandr, 2021. "Conference presentations and academic publishing," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 228-254.
    9. Dennis Essers & Francesco Grigoli & Evgenia Pugacheva, 2022. "Network effects and research collaborations: evidence from IMF Working Paper co-authorship," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(12), pages 7169-7192, December.
    10. Marcus Biermann, 2021. "Remote talks: changes to economics seminars during Covid-19," CEP Discussion Papers dp1759, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    11. Spiegel, Yossi & Toivanen, Otto, 2022. "From conference submission to publication and citations: Evidence from the EARIE conference," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    12. Rose, Michael E. & Georg, Co-Pierre, 2021. "What 5,000 acknowledgements tell us about informal collaboration in financial economics," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(6).
    13. Christian Catalini & Christian Fons-Rosen & Patrick Gaulé, 2020. "How Do Travel Costs Shape Collaboration?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(8), pages 3340-3360, August.
    14. Biermann, Marcus, 2024. "Remote talks: Changes to economics seminars during COVID-19," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    15. Misha Teplitskiy & Soya Park & Neil Thompson & David Karger, 2022. "Intentional and serendipitous diffusion of ideas: Evidence from academic conferences," Papers 2209.01175, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2024.
    16. Baruffaldi, Stefano & Poege, Felix, 2020. "A Firm Scientific Community: Industry Participation and Knowledge Diffusion," IZA Discussion Papers 13419, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Jacqueline N. Lane & Ina Ganguli & Patrick Gaule & Eva Guinan & Karim R. Lakhani, 2021. "Engineering serendipity: When does knowledge sharing lead to knowledge production?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(6), pages 1215-1244, June.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    conference effects; collaboration; formation of teams; production in science;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact

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