nep-sog 2014-12-19 papers

on Sociology of Economics

Issue of 2014‒12‒19
two papers chosen by
Jonas Holmström
Axventure AB

Collaborating With People Like Me: Ethnic Co-authorship within the US By Freeman, Richard B.; Huang, Wei
“Are we wasting our talent?Overqualification and overskilling among PhD graduates” By Antonio di Paolo; Ferran Mañé

Collaborating With People Like Me: Ethnic Co-authorship within the US

By:	Freeman, Richard B. (Harvard University); Huang, Wei (Harvard University)
Abstract:	This study examines the ethnic identity of authors in over 2.5 million scientific papers written by US-based authors from 1985 to 2008, a period in which the frequency of English and European names among authors fell relative to the frequency of names from China and other developing countries. We find that persons of similar ethnicity co-author together more frequently than predicted by their proportion among authors. Using a measure of homophily for individual papers, we find that greater homophily is associated with publication in lower impact journals and with fewer citations, even holding fixed the authors' previous publishing performance. By contrast, papers with authors in more locations and with longer reference lists get published in higher impact journals and receive more citations than others. These findings suggest that diversity in inputs by author ethnicity, location, and references leads to greater contributions to science as measured by impact factors and citations.
Keywords:	homophily, impact factor, citations
JEL:	D8 F22 J24
Date:	2014–08
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8432&r=sog

“Are we wasting our talent?Overqualification and overskilling among PhD graduates”

By:	Antonio di Paolo (Department of Econometrics. University of Barcelona); Ferran Mañé (Universitat Rovira i Virgili & CREIP)
Abstract:	Drawing on a very rich data set from a recent cohort of PhD graduates, we examine the correlates and consequences of qualification and skills mismatch. We show that job characteristics such as the economic sector and the main activity at work play a fundamental direct role in explaining the probability of being well matched. However, the effect of academic attributes seems to be mainly indirect, since it disappears once we control for the full set of work characteristics. We detected a significant earnings penalty for those who are both overqualified and overskilled and also showed that being mismatched reduces job satisfaction, especially for those whose skills are underutilized. Overall, the problem of mismatch among PhD graduates is closely related to demand-side constraints of the labor market. Increasing the supply of adequate jobs and broadening the skills PhD students acquire during training should be explored as possible responses.
Keywords:	Overskilling, overqualification, doctors, earnings, job satisfaction JEL classification: I20, J24, J28, J31
Date:	2014–10
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aqr:wpaper:201414&r=sog

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