RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Publish or Perish
JF Journal of Human Resources
JO J Hum Resour
FD University of Wisconsin Press
SP 1307
OP 1346
DO 10.3368/jhr.59.2.1219-10630R1
VO 58
IS 4
A1 Yu, Huifeng
A1 Marschke, Gerald
A1 Ross, Matthew B.
A1 Staudt, Joseph
A1 Weinberg, Bruce A.
YR 2023
UL http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/58/4/1307.abstract
AB Studying 5.6 million biomedical science articles published over three decades, we reconcile conflicts in a long-standing interdisciplinary literature on scientists’ life-cycle productivity by controlling for selective attrition and distinguishing between research quantity and quality. While research quality declines monotonically over the career, this decline is easily overlooked because higher “ability” authors have longer publishing careers. Our results have implications for broader questions of human capital accumulation over the career and federal research policies that shift funding to early-career researchers—while funding researchers at their most creative, these policies must be undertaken carefully because young researchers are less “able” on average.