On the Relation Between Intellectual Collaboration and Intellectual Output: Evidence from the Finance Academe

Abstract

This paper tests the relation between intellectual collaboration and the quality of the intellectual output using academic papers published in prestigious finance journals during 1988-2005. We use the number of authors of a paper to measure the extent of intellectual collaboration and the number of citations that a paper receives (adjusted by the number of years since the paper's publication) as a measure of its intellectual value. Based on empirical tests, we find that papers with more authors are cited more often. This relation does not hold for purely theoretical papers. Coauthoring with a prolific author leads to higher quality papers, but coauthoring with colleagues at the same institution leads to neither higher nor lower quality papers. Papers with four authors are cited most often. Overall, when it comes to intellectual collaboration, our results counter the notion that too many cooks spoil the broth.