TY - JOUR
T1 - The reverse matthew effect
T2 - Consequences of retraction in scientific teams
AU - Jin, Ginger Zhe
AU - Jones, Benjamin
AU - Lu, Susan Feng
AU - Uzzi, Brian
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Alex Entz, Yiyan Liu, Huan Meng, and Ari Bellin for excellent research assistance and seminar participants at Case Western, Harvard, Northeastern, Northwestern, Purdue, University of Chicago, the 2013 International Industrial Organization Conference, and the Collegio Carlo Alberto for helpful comments and suggestions. We also thank the University of Maryland; the Northwestern University Institute on Complex Systems; the Army Research Laboratory and U.S. Army Research Office grant W911NF15-1-0577. The views and conclusions contained in this document are our own and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the Army Research Laboratory or the U.S. government.
Funding Information:
We thank Alex Entz, Yiyan Liu, Huan Meng, and Ari Bellin for excellent research assistance and seminar participants at Case Western, Harvard, Northeastern, Northwestern, Purdue, University of Chicago, the 2013 International Industrial Organization Conference, and the Collegio Carlo Alberto for helpful comments and suggestions. We also thank the University of Maryland; the Northwestern University Institute on Complex Systems; the Army Research Laboratory and U.S. Army Research Office grant W911NF-15-1-0577. The views and conclusions contained in this document are our own and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the Army Research Laboratory or the U.S. government.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
PY - 2019/7/1
Y1 - 2019/7/1
N2 - —Teamwork pervades modern production, yet teamwork can make individual roles difficult to ascertain. The Matthew effect suggests that communities reward eminent team members for great outcomes at the expense of less eminent team members. We study this phenomenon in reverse, investigating credit sharing after damaging events. Our context is article retractions in the sciences. We find that retractions impose little citation penalty on the prior work of eminent coauthors, but less eminent coauthors experience substantial citation declines, especially when teamed with eminent authors. These findings suggest a reverse Matthew effect for team-produced negative events. A Bayesian model provides a candidate interpretation.
AB - —Teamwork pervades modern production, yet teamwork can make individual roles difficult to ascertain. The Matthew effect suggests that communities reward eminent team members for great outcomes at the expense of less eminent team members. We study this phenomenon in reverse, investigating credit sharing after damaging events. Our context is article retractions in the sciences. We find that retractions impose little citation penalty on the prior work of eminent coauthors, but less eminent coauthors experience substantial citation declines, especially when teamed with eminent authors. These findings suggest a reverse Matthew effect for team-produced negative events. A Bayesian model provides a candidate interpretation.
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U2 - 10.1162/rest_a_00780
DO - 10.1162/rest_a_00780
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85068124274
SN - 0034-6535
VL - 101
SP - 492
EP - 506
JO - Review of Economics and Statistics
JF - Review of Economics and Statistics
IS - 3
ER -