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on Sociology of Economics |
| By: | Daniel S. Hamermesh |
| Abstract: | I describe and compare sources of data on citations in economics and the statistics that can be constructed from them. Constructing data sets of the post-publication citation histories of articles published in the “Top 5” journals in the 1970s and the 2000s, I examine distributions and life cycles of citations, compare citation histories of articles in different sub-specialties in economics and present evidence on the history and heterogeneity of those journals’ impacts and the marginal citation productivity of additional coauthors. I use a new data set of the lifetime citation histories of over 1000 economists from 30 universities to rank economics departments by various measures and to demonstrate the importance of intra- and inter-departmental heterogeneity in productivity. Throughout, the discussion summarizes earlier work. I survey research on the impacts of citations on salaries and non-monetary rewards and discuss how citations reflect judgments about research quality in economics. |
| JEL: | A11 A14 J31 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21754&r=sog |
| By: | Pierre Azoulay; Christian Fons-Rosen; Joshua S. Graff Zivin |
| Abstract: | We study the extent to which eminent scientists shape the vitality of their fields by examining entry rates into the fields of 452 academic life scientists who pass away while at the peak of their scientific abilities. Key to our analyses is a novel way to delineate boundaries around scientific fields by appealing solely to intellectual linkages between scientists and their publications, rather than collaboration or co-citation patterns. Consistent with previous research, the flow of articles by collaborators into affected fields decreases precipitously after the death of a star scientist (relative to control fields). In contrast, we find that the flow of articles by non-collaborators increases by 8% on average. These additional contributions are disproportionately likely to be highly cited. They are also more likely to be authored by scientists who were not previously active in the deceased superstar’s field. Overall, these results suggest that outsiders are reluctant to challenge leadership within a field when the star is alive and that a number of barriers may constrain entry even after she is gone. Intellectual, social, and resource barriers all impede entry, with outsiders only entering subfields that offer a less hostile landscape for the support and acceptance of “foreign” ideas. |
| JEL: | I23 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2015–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21788&r=sog |
| By: | Maria De Paola; Michela Ponzo; Vincenzo Scoppa (Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza, Università della Calabria) |
| Abstract: | We exploit a natural experiment based on the Italian promotion system for associate and full professor positions to investigate gender differences in the willingness to enter competition. Using data on about 42,000 professors and controlling for productivity and a number of individual and field characteristics, we find that females have a lower probability of applying for competition of about 4 percentage points. The determinants of this gap seem to be gender differences in risk-aversion and self-confidence and women’s fear of discrimination: the lower tendency to enter competition is especially relevant for women in the lower tail of the distribution of scientific productivity and in fields in which productivity is not easily measurable; furthermore, women are less likely to apply for promotion in fields in which promotions of females in the past were rare. |
| Keywords: | Attitudes towards competition, Gender gaps, Risk-aversion, Self-confidence, Discrimination, Academic Promotions, Natural Experiment |
| JEL: | J71 M51 J45 J16 D72 D78 |
| Date: | 2015–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:clb:wpaper:201505&r=sog |