| Abstract: |
We examine geographical concentration, scientific quality, and editorial
favoritism in the field of experimental economics. We use a novel data set
containing all original research papers ( NÂ = 596) that exclusively used
laboratory experiments for data generation and were published in the American
Economic Review, Experimental Economics, or the Journal of the European
Economic Association between 1998 and 2018. The development of geographical
concentration is examined using data on authors' affiliations at the time of
the respective publication. Results show that research output produced by
US-affiliated economists increased slower than overall research output,
leading to a decrease in geographical concentration. Several proxies for
scientific quality indicate that experiments conducted in Europe are of higher
quality than experiments conducted in North America: European experiments rely
on a larger total number of participants as well as participants per
treatment, and receive more citations compared to experiments conducted in
North America. Examining laboratory experiments published in the AER more
closely, we find that papers authored by economists with US-affiliations
receive significantly fewer citations in the first 5 and 10 years after
publication compared to papers by authors from the rest of the world. |