1 Top Research Productivity and its Persistence∗ A Survival Time Analysis for a Panel of Belgian Scientists

The paper contributes to the debate on cumulative advantage effects in academic research by examining top performance in research and its persistence over time, using a panel dataset comprising the publications of biomedical and exact scientists at the KU Leuven in the period 1992-2001. We study the selection of researchers into productivity categories and analyze how they switch between these categories over time. About 25 % achieves top performance at least once, while 5 % is persistently top. Analyzing the hazard to first and subsequent top performance shows strong support for an accumulative process. Rank, gender, hierarchical position and past performance are highly significant explanatory factors