We live in a time of increasing publication rates and specialization of scientific disciplines. More and more, the research community is facing the challenge of assuring the quality of research and maintaining trust in the scientific enterprise. Replication studies are necessary to detect...

We test how a reduction in travel cost affects the rate and direction of scientific research. Using a fine-grained, scientist-level dataset within chemistry (1991-2012), we find that after Southwest Airlines enters a new route, scientific collaboration increases by 50%, an effect that is...

Longitudinal micro-data derived from transaction level information about wage and vendor payments made by federal grants on multiple U.S. campuses are being developed in a partnership involving researchers, university administrators, representatives of federal agencies, and others. This paper...

We study the impact of research collaborations in coauthorship networks on research output and how optimal funding can maximize it. Through the links in the collaboration network, researchers create spillovers not only to their direct coauthors but also to researchers indirectly linked to them....

Academic careers in Germany have been under debate for a while. We conduct a survey among postdocs in Germany, to analyze the perceptions and attitudes of postdocs regarding their research incentives, their working conditions, and their career prospects. We conceptualize the career prospects of...

This paper provides causal evidence on long-term consequences of Jewish expulsions in Nazi Germany on the educational attainment and political outcomes of German children. We combine a unique city-level dataset on the fraction of Jewish population residing in Germany before the Nazi Regime with...

Although the share of female PhDs has increased explosively since the 1980s, little research has focused on the utilisation and remuneration of female versus male scientific human capital. Using rich Swedish cross-sectional register data on the stock of PhDs in 2004, this paper analyses to what...

We collect data on the movement and productivity of elite scientists. Their mobility is remarkable: nearly half of the world's most-cited physicists work outside their country of birth. We show they migrate systematically towards nations with large R&D spending. Our study cannot adjudicate on...

The aim of this paper is to measure the extent to which lower wages in R&D functions reflect a preference effect. In contrast to the bulk of the literature on compensating wage differentials that compares wage levels of jobs with different attributes, we constructed measures of willingness to...

It has been known for centuries that the rich and famous have longer lives than the poor and ordinary. Causality, however, remains trenchantly debated. The ideal experiment would be one in which status and money could somehow be dropped upon a sub-sample of individuals while those in a control...