Gabriele Pellegrino (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore)

“Production and diffusion of scientific knowledge: evidence from the Turkish failed coup”

Abstract. We provide causal evidence on the effect of a massive and sudden reduction in the number of researchers and scientists on the level and quality of the production of scientific knowledge both at aggregate (academic fields) and micro (researchers) level. To this aim, we put forth an identification strategy that leverages on the recent and unexpected dismissal of more than 6,000 scientists and academic professors from many Turkish universities as consequence of the 2016 failed coup.  We find that fields more exposed to the dismissals experience a 40% reduction in the number of publications after the shock. Also, we find a large negative productivity effect on those scholars whose research overlapped with that of the dismissed.