Indeed the paper I mentioned discusses this as the “Halo effect” or “Matthew effect” found by Merton in “The Sociology of Science” wherein a scientist becomes more esteemed in the eyes of his or her peers and this leads to more citations than one would otherwise expect.

The authors note that an absolute increase in citation rank does not occur after a Nobel prize, but that the falloff in ranking with time is less pronounced for Nobel laureates than for their colleagues who were nominated but not selected (and who thus do not benefit from a public “Halo”)

This effect, like the peak itself, seems to disappear as one moves into more recent times and citation “parity” comes into play.

I was wondering whether getting the Nobel prize affects the number of citations. Specifically, is it possible to
make a survey on the time distribution of the citations of Nobel prize winners before and after getting the prize.
(I presume that getting the prize will significantly increase the citations, both to the work that has been cited in the prize and to other works of the prize winner.)

Yours,
Shahin.