Co-authorship and productivity among Italian economists

The world of scientific research has undergone dramatic changes in recent decades. These changes, which likely originated in the 'hard sciences' realm, rapidly extended to the social sciences and, in particular, to economics, often seen as bridging these two areas. Increased specialization and extensive collaboration are common behaviours in the scientific community, as well as in the evaluation of scientific research based on bibliometric indicators. This article aims to analyse the effect of co-authorships on the scientific productivity of Italian economists. The empirical analysis is based on an original database using two independent data sources: the Econlit database of the American Economic Association and the official database of the Italian Ministry of Universities and Research. Using econometric methods we explain the productivity of individual Italian economists in terms of 'attributional' variables (such as age, gender, academic position, tenure, scientific sub-discipline and geographical location) and 'relational' variables (such as the propensity to cooperate and the international reach of the individual co-authorship network). © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.