The Reverse Matthew Effect: Consequences of Retraction in Scientific Teams

Teamwork pervades modern production, yet teamwork can make individual roles difficult to ascertain. The Matthew effect suggests that communities reward eminent team members for great outcomes at the expense of less eminent team members. We study this phenomenon in reverse, investigating credit sharing after damaging events. Our context is article retractions in the sciences. We find that retractions impose little citation penalty on the prior...