I think this study is approaching the limits of what can be determined using quantitative methods. The academia is not single field but a collection of tens of

I think this study is approaching the limits of what can be determined using quantitative methods. The academia is not single field but a collection of tens of thousands of overlapping niches. If you want to understand the dynamics in a niche, you must spend years studying it, which does not scale. In the niche I'm most familiar with, where I can often tell the difference between the reputation of a researcher and the quality of their work, prestige does not seem to have a significant role. University of Cambridge is the only institute that stands out, while most top people and most faculty members come from a wide range of reputable but unexceptional research universities. Prestige seems to have a bigger role in another subfield I work in, but I'm not as confident in evaluating the people in it. The big difference seems to be that this subfield favors building large labs and emphasizes the role of the PI as a manager and a visionary rather than as a researcher. I'm not even sure if the quality of research means the same things in this field as in my home field.