In this paper we argue that any meaningful bibliometric evaluation of researchers needs to take into account that research productivity follows distinct life cycles. Using an encompassing data set portraying the research behavior of German academic economists, we first show that research...

We examine the research productivity of German academic economists over their life cycles. It turns out that the career-patterns of research productivity as measured by journal publications are characterized by marked cohort effects. Moreover, the life-cycles of younger German economists are...