Table 5 Fixed-effects panel regression results. Dependent variable is the log number of citations per paper, and the “specialization” variable is standardized. Standard errors are in parentheses. All control variables described in the main manuscript are included. Based on 8135 unique biomedical researchers assigned to the discipline molecular and cell biology with between 75 and 99 career publications

Specialization

0.249***

0.342***

0.395***

0.696***

(0.006)

(0.009)

(0.012)

(0.021)

Specialization × career age

− 0.007***

− 0.025***

(0.0004)

(0.001)

Specialization × papers

− 0.057***

− 0.100***

(0.004)

(0.007)

Career age × papers

0.020***

(0.001)

Specialization × career age × papers

0.004***

(0.001)

Observations

53,890

53,890

53,890

53,890

R ²

0.133

0.138

0.137

0.146

Adjusted R²

− 0.022

− 0.016

− 0.017

− 0.007

Control variables

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Year fixed-effects

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Researcher fixed-effects

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes