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on Sociology of Economics |
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Issue of 2009‒12‒19
two papers chosen by Jonas Holmström Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration |
| By: | Hamermesh, Daniel S.; Pfann, Gerard Antonie |
| Abstract: | We develop a theory of the market for individual reputation, an indicator of regard by one’s peers and others. The central questions are: 1) Does the quantity of exposures raise reputation independent of their quality? and 2) Assuming that overall quality matters for reputation, does the quality of an individual’s most important exposure have an extra effect on reputation? Using evidence for academic economists, we find that, conditional on its impact, the quantity of output has no or even a negative effect on each of a number of proxies for reputation, and very little evidence that a scholar’s most influential work provides any extra enhancement of reputation. Quality ranking matters more than absolute quality. Data on mobility and salaries show, on the contrary, substantial positive effects of quantity, independent of quality. We test various explanations for the differences between the determinants of reputation and salary. |
| Keywords: | mobility; quality/quantity trade-off; salary determination |
| JEL: | J31 L14 |
| Date: | 2009–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:7603&r=sog |
| By: | Das, Jishnu; Do, Quy-Toan; Shaines, Karen; Srinivasan, Sowmya |
| Abstract: | Using a database of 76,046 empirical economics papers published between 1985 and 2004 in the top 202 economics journals, the authors report two associations. First, per-capita research output on a given country increases with the country's per capita gross domestic product (GDP). Regressions controlling for data availability and quality in the country, indicators of governance and the use of English yield an estimated research-GDP elasticity of 0.37; surprisingly, the United States (US) is not an outlier in the production of empirical research. Second, papers written about the US are far more likely to be published in the top five economics journals, even after the quality of research has been partially controlled for through fixed-effects for the authors'institutional affiliations; the estimates suggest that papers on the US are 2.6 percentage points more likely to be published in the top-five journals. This is a large effect because only 1.5 percent of all papers written about countries other than the US are published in the top-five journals. The authors speculate about the interpretations of these facts, and invite further analysis and additions to the public release of the database that accompanies this paper. |
| Keywords: | Information Security&Privacy,Economic Theory&Research,Tertiary Education,Labor Policies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems |
| Date: | 2009–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5152&r=sog |