Fig. 2. Impact of available labor on group size and group productivity.

(A) Coefficients of standardized departmental covariates for predicting annual average total productivity, group productivity, and group size, divided into groups of disciplines with and without collaboration norms (see the Supplementary Materials). Bars indicate 95% confidence intervals, and filled-in circles indicate statistically significant coefficients at the 0.05 level. Funded labor is significant and highly predictive of all dependent variables, even after controlling for prestige, in disciplines with collaboration norms. (B) For matched pairs of faculty, mean group size in the 3 years before and after moving to a location with more (dashed orange) or less (solid black) available funded labor than their pre-move location. Error bars indicate 1 SE. (C) Mean cumulative number of group members over a faculty career as a function of cumulative group productivity, for faculty at the least prestigious (solid black) or most prestigious (dashed orange) half of institutions in their discipline, showing a nearly identical size-productivity relationship. Envelopes indicate 95% confidence intervals around the means.