The role of gender and coauthors in academic publication behavior

Abstract

This paper contributes to the literature on differences in publication behavior of male and female scientists by examining two natural experiments in Germany that exogenously varied the attractiveness of journals. As a result of transformative open access publication agreements, journals published by Springer Nature and Wiley became more attractive as outlets for authors in Germany, while Elsevier journals lost some of their attractiveness within Germany due to substantial cancellations by university libraries. Studying 243,375 published articles in economics between 2015 and 2022, our findings suggests that men tend to seek reputation, while women favor visibility through open access, at least at the margin. While authorship in teams can dilute these behavioral patterns, female economists publish more single-authored papers. Overall female researchers appear to contribute more to the public good of open science, while their male colleagues focus on private reputation. These findings may offer an additional explanatory channel for the academic gender gap.