The relationship between the number of authors of a publication, its citations and the impact factor of the publishing journal: Evidence from Italy

•Correlation analysis between the number of authors of a publication and its impact.•Correlation analysis between the number of authors of a publication and IF.•Analysis of differences by document type, subject category, and time periods.•Analyses based on all Italian publications indexed in WoS over 2004–2010.

Empirical evidence shows that co-authored publications achieve higher visibility and impact. The aim of the current work is to test for the existence of a similar correlation for Italian publications. We also verify if such correlation differs: (i) by subject category and macro-area; (ii) by document type; (iii) over the course of time. The results confirm world-level evidence, showing a consistent and significant linear growth in the citability of a publication with number of co-authors, in almost all subject categories. The effects are more remarkable in the fields of Social Sciences and Art & Humanities than in the Sciences – a finding not so obvious scrutinizing previous studies. Moreover, our results partly disavow the positive association between number of authors and prestige of the journal, as measured by its impact factor.