2011-01-16 papers

on Sociology of Economics

Issue of 2011–01–16
two papers chosen by
Jonas Holmström, Axventure AB

Economics of co-authorship By Bruno, Bruno
The Allocation of Talent: Evidence from the Market of Economists By Boehm, Michael J.; Watzinger, Martin

By:	Bruno, Bruno
Abstract:	Starting from the literature on the rising incidence of co-authorship in economics, choices about co-authorship are analyzed with a theoretical model, assuming that authors optimize the returns from publications. Results show that co-authorship behavior depends both on the technology of the production of economic research and on the reward system that a researcher faces. Two pay structures are considered, one that is proportional to the number of authors and one that is not. The researchers’ heterogeneity implies a trade-off for the policy maker between the objective of effort maximization and the objective of selection of better researchers. The trade-off is more relevant when low-quality researchers choose to engage in opportunistic behavior to gain from higher-quality collaborations.
Keywords:	Co-authorship; Academic research; returns from publications
JEL:	D0 J40 A11
Date:	2010–12
URL:	https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27730

The Allocation of Talent: Evidence from the Market of Economists

By:	Boehm, Michael J.; Watzinger, Martin
Abstract:	Recent research in labor economics has highlighted the substantial and long-lasting adverse effect of recessions on employment prospects and earnings. In this paper, we study whether individuals react to these shocks by changing career paths and thereby affect the selection of talent into sectors. More concretely, we examine how the publication success and career choice of graduates from the leading US economics PhD programs varies with the state of the business cycle at application and at graduation. Our results strongly support the predictions of a Roy-style model of self-selection into sectors: We find that adverse macroeconomic conditions at application lead to a substantially more productive selection of individuals into academia and at graduation they lead to more PhDs deciding to stay in academia.
Keywords:	Sectoral Selection, Skill Composition, Business Cycle, Careers
JEL:	I29 J44 J24
Date:	2010–06
URL:	https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27463

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