Access to scientific literature in India

This paper uses an evidence-based approach to assess the difficulties faced by developing country scientists in accessing the scientific literature. I compare backward citations patterns of Swiss and Indian scientists in a database of 43’150 scientific papers published by scientists from either country in 2007. Controlling for fields and quality with citing journal fixed effects, I find that Indian scientists (1) have shorter references lists (2) are more likely to cite articles from open access journals and (3) are less likely to cite articles from expensive journals. The magnitude of the effects is small which can be explained by informal file sharing practices among scientists. ∗I thank seminar participants at the CUSO doctoral workshop and the CEMI research day for interaction and comments. I am indebted to Robin Cowan, Bronwyn Hall, Nicolas Maystre, Mario Piacentini, Marcelo Olarreaga, Ed Steinmueller, Mathias Thoenig and especially Philip Davis and Dominique Foray for insightful discussions and advice. I am grateful to survey participants for their time and encouragements. †Chaire en Economie et Management de l’Innovation, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland, patrick.gaule@epfl.ch ‡Department of Economics, University of Geneva