CHARACTERISTICS AND IMPACT OF THE MATTHEW EFFECT FOR COUNTRIES

In this paper newly established characteristics of the so-called Matth ew Effect for Countries (MEG) are presented: field-dependency, time-st ability, order of magnitude, We find that the MEC is observable in all main scientific fields that were investigated. Over fifteen years the MEC has been relatively stable. The MEC is a redistribution phenomeno n at the macro-level of the sciences. Its magnitude is small; the MEC affects only about five percent of the world production of citations. The MEG, however, crucially impacts many nations when their ''national loss of citations'' amounts to a high percentage of their expected ci tations. The relationship between the MEC and Merton's Matthew Princip le is discussed. It is our hypothesis that the MEC provides an additio nal approach for the assessment of the scientific performance of natio ns.