The Emergence of the Economics of Science: Evidence from the WOEPS workshop (2007-2023)

The paper studies the development of the Economics of Science as a new emerging field in the social sciences during the period 1994-2023. To identify the community of scholars working in this new scientific field, we examine citations received by two seminal papers. Using network analysis, we investigate the cognitive and organizational characteristics of this community. In the second part of the paper, we assess the role played by the Workshop on the Organisation, Economics, and Policy of Scientific Research (WOEPS), initiated in 2007, in the formation of the community of scholars in the Economics of Science. We find that the Economics of Science has not yet established itself as an independent and cohesive field, presenting a highly fragmented structure. Moreover, we provide evidence that WOEPS has nevertheless contributed to the formation of this field. First, WOEPS participants have more economists of science as coauthors and are better positioned to connect different clusters of authors in the network. Second, WOEPS papers were published in higher “quality” journals, received relatively more citations in general and significantly more citations from within the Economics of Science field.

Manuscript

In preparation for Special Issue of Economics of Innovation and New Technology.