How do academic gatherings promote knowledge production and dissemination?

Abstract

Academic gatherings, such as conferences, are one of the most important types of activities in academia, yet they are understudied in the literature. Using a sample of 5379 articles published between 2000 and 2019 in the top five Economics journals, we identify whether the article was presented in academic gatherings based on wording in the paper's Acknowledgement sections, and explore its effect on citations. We find that papers acknowledging academic gatherings are associated with higher citations, and this relationship is mediated by a broader knowledge base and the more attention; that is, acknowledging academic gatherings corresponds to the paper having a broader knowledge base and being viewed more frequently, thus receive higher citations. We also find that papers authored by junior scholars with limited knowledge, skills, and experience benefit more from academic gatherings than those by senior scholars. Our findings deepen the understanding of academic gatherings and knowledge production and dissemination.