Growth dynamics of German university enrolments and of scientific disciplines in the 19th century: scaling behaviour under weak competitive pressure

摘要

According to authors like H. E. Stanley and others, growth dynamics of university research displays a quantitative behaviour similar to the growth dynamics of firms acting under competitive pressure. Features of such a behaviour are probability distributions of annual growth rates or the standard deviation of growth rates. We show that a similar statistical behaviour can be observed in the growth dynamics of German university enrolments or in the growth dynamics of physics and mathematics, both for the 19th century. Since competitive pressure was generally weak at that time, interpretations of statistical similarities as to pointing to a "firm-like behaviour" are questionable.