Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
We provide evidence for the effectiveness of conferences in promoting academic impact by exploiting the cancellationdue to Hurricane Isaacof the 2012 American Political Science Association Annual Meeting. We assembled a data set of 29,142 papers and quantified conference effects, using difference-in-differences regressions. Within four years of being presented at the conference, a papers likelihood of becoming cited increases by five percentage points. We decompose the effects by authorship and provide an account of the underlying mechanisms. Overall, our findings point to the role of short-term face-to-face interactions in the formation and dissemination of scientific knowledge.