Trino Vercellese power plantAbstract
Scientists’ human capital is the main factor in the production of knowledge. I study how flexible field-specific human capital is, trying to understand if researchers can bring valuable contributions to innovation out of their main field of studies. I focus on the careers of Italian nuclear scientists before and after the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. In 1987 in Italy a referendum stopped the production of nuclear energy, and strongly reduced fundings to research in that field. Using data from Microsoft Academic Graph, I show that after Chernobyl the amount of Italian papers published in nuclear fission decreased by 50%. Researchers who had already published in fission experienced a reduction of 24% in their citations, and 7% in published papers 15 years after the shock. Compared to other physicists, they neither moved more frequently, nor contributed permanently to more new fields.
Enrico Stivella
PhD student in Economics
Mostly doing research in Economics of Science, Innovation and Human Capital. If not, playing basketball or getting lost in the mountains.