CUMULATIVE ADVANTAGE AND INEQUALITY IN SCIENCE.

The hypothesis of cumulative advantage is widely accepted in the sociology of science, but empirical tests have been few and equivocal. One approach, originated by Allison and Stewart (1974), is to see whether inequality of productivity and recognition increases as a cohort of scientists ages. This paper extends their work by examining true cohorts of biochemists and chemists rather than synthetic cohorts. Increasing inequality is observed for counts of publications but not for counts of citations to all previous publications. It is also shown that a mathematical model of cumulative advantage does not imply increasing inequality. When the model is modified to allow for heterogeneity in the rate of cumulative advantage, however, increasing inequality is implied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]