Economics coauthorships in the aftermath of MeToo

Abstract

We study changes in coauthorships in economics, after the MeToo movement, using NBER and CEPR working papers between January 2004 and December 2020. We identify three main shifts in collaboration patterns. First, compared to pre-MeToo levels, collaborations across genders in an author’s seniority group increased: we estimate a 12.3% increase of women coauthors per 100 men-authored papers. Second, coauthorship shares of senior with junior economics declined by 3.0%, indicating a shift towards sorting of collaborations by seniority. Third, shares of new coauthorships declined by 5.4%, driven by drops in senior economists’ shares of new junior and new junior women by 18.4% and 48.0%, respectively. The results are robust to different specifications.