The Nobel “Pride”

The Nobel Prize is considered one of the highest forms of recognition of scientific accomplishment, conferring immense prestige upon its recipients. Given the significant time lag between the award and the discovery, Nobel Prizes are bestowed to individuals associated with institutions and countries other than the original place of the discovery. Contextualizing our research in status-seeking literature, we define the imprecise and sometimes excessive appropriation of Nobel Prizes by institutions and even countries as the “Nobel ‘Pride’ Phenomenon”. Our empirical analysis focuses on the time and location of the 653 discoveries underlying each of the 350 Nobel Prizes in medicine, physics, and chemistry until 2024. We find that:

• 80% of all Nobel Prize discoveries are made in just five countries.
• 30% of all Nobel laureates were immigrants; most moved before their Nobel discoveries.
• 77 institutions with Nobel discoveries never were recognized with a Nobel Prize.
• Over 40% of Nobel laureates changed their institutions between discovery and award.
• Only three countries outperform the US in terms of discoveries per capita.

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