Presentations

• 2025: WOEPS, University of Strasbourg

Abstract

Female researchers, on average, publish fewer articles and in journals of lower impact compared to men. A potential contributing factor is that women have smaller professional networks, potentially due to the lack of networking opportunities. Descriptive statistics indicate that women have fewer collaborators and are less central within their networks. This paper analyses whether women have a different propensity to form new connections, exploiting a large scale natural experiment across all disciplines in Italian academia. I exploit exogenous variation in the networking opportunities available to Professors, stemming from some pairs of researchers randomly being drawn to sit on the same committee, while other pairs are not. I find that researchers who sit on the same committee are more likely to collaborate on future projects, with new joint publications getting published as soon as 3 years after the initial shock. I find no gender differences in the propensity to form new co-authorships.

Citation

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