Title: Superstar Extinction
Abstract We estimate the magnitude of spillovers generated by 137 academic "superstars" in the lifesciences onto their coauthors' research productivity. These researchers died while still beingactively engaged in science, thus providing an exogenous source of variation in the structureof their collaborators' coauthor ship networks. Following the death of a superstar, we find thatcoauthors suffer a lasting 8 to 18% decline in their quality-adjusted publication output. Thesefindings are surprisingly homogenous across a wide range of coauthor and coauthor/superstardyad characteristics. Together, they suggest that part of the scientific field embodied in the"invisible college" of coauthors working in that area dies along with the star -
that theextinction of a star represents a genuine and irreplaceable loss of human capital. Keywords: knowledge spillovers, economics of science, collaboration, careers.
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