Archetypal Scientists

22 Pages Posted: 14 Nov 2012

See all articles by Christian Seiler

Christian Seiler

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute) - Ifo Institute

Klaus Wohlrabe

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute) - Ifo Institute

Date Written: November 13, 2012

Abstract

We introduce archetypal analysis as a tool to describe and categorize scientists. This approach identifies typical characteristics of extreme (’archetypal’) values in a multivariate data set. These positive or negative contextual attributes can be allocated to each scientists under investigation. In our application, we use a sample of seven bibliometric indicators for 29,083 economists obtained from the RePEc database and identify six archetypes. These are mainly characterized by ratios of published work and citations. We discuss applications and limitations of this approach. Finally, we assign relative shares of the identified archetypes to each economist in our sample.

Keywords: archetypal analysis, classification, scientists, RePEc

JEL Classification: A120, A140

Suggested Citation

Seiler, Christian and Wohlrabe, Klaus, Archetypal Scientists (November 13, 2012). CESifo Working Paper Series No. 3990, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2174930 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2174930

Christian Seiler

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute) - Ifo Institute ( email )

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, 01069
Germany

Klaus Wohlrabe (Contact Author)

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute) - Ifo Institute ( email )

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, 01069
Germany

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