Networks of scientific collaboration: Structure, conduct and performance

Abstract

We study the network of co-authorship among economists. This network is expanding: the number of authors is growing but the distance between them is shrinking: economics is an emerging small world. We find that network structure has powerful effects: closer-by authors in the network are much more likely to begin a collaboration tomorrow. Finally, we identify features of the current network of an author that contain useful information on his/her future productivity.