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on Sociology of Economics |
| By: | Beverly Hirtle; Anna Kovner |
| Abstract: | We analyze 6, 400 letters of recommendation for more than 2, 200 economics and finance Ph.D. graduates from 2018 to 2021. Letter text varies significantly by field of interest, with significantly less positive and shorter letters for Macroeconomics and Finance candidates. Letters for female and Black or Hispanic job candidates are weaker in some dimensions, while letters for Asian candidates are notably less positive overall. We introduce a new measure of letter quality capturing candidates that are recommended to "top" departments. Female, Asian, and Black or Hispanic candidates are all less likely to be recommended to top academic departments, even after controlling for other letter characteristics. Finally, we examine early career outcomes and find that letter characteristics, especially a "top" recommendation have meaningful effects on initial job placements and journal publications. |
| Keywords: | recommendation letters; gender in economics; race and ethnicity in economics; research institutions; professional labor markets |
| JEL: | A11 A23 J15 J16 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedrwp:98967 |
| By: | W Benedikt Schmal; Laura Rothfritz; Ulrich Herb |
| Abstract: | Transformative agreements between academic publishers and research institutions are ubiquitous. The ‘Efficiency and Standards for Article Charges’ 8 (ESAC) Initiative lists more than 1, 000 contracts in its database. We make use of this unique dataset by web-scraping the details of every contract to 10 substantially expand the overview spreadsheet provided by the ESAC Initiative. Based on that hitherto unused data source, we combine qualitative and 12 quantitative methods to conduct an in-depth analysis of the contract characteristics and the TA landscape. Our analysis demonstrates that research 14 institutions seem to be ‘trapped’ in transformative agreements. Instead of being a bridge towards a fully Open Access world, academia is stuck in the 16 hybrid system. This endows the legacy (non-Open Access) publishing houses with substantial market power. It raises entry barriers, lowers competition, 18 and increases costs for libraries and universities. |
| Keywords: | Transformative Agreements, Academic Publishing, Open Access, Risk sharing, Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley |
| Date: | 2024–10–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ete:msiper:750047 |
| By: | François Claveau (Université de Sherbrooke); Jacob Hamel-Mottiez (Université Laval); Alexandre Truc (Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, France); Conrad Heilmann (Erasmus University Rotterdam) |
| Abstract: | We present bibliometric evidence for increasing estrangement between the philosophy of economics and economics itself. Our analysis centers on research articles published in the Journal of Economic Methodology (JEM) between 1994 and 2021. We analyze the citations within these research articles, in particular with respect to the citations of economics. Our results are fourfold. (1) The share of economic citations in JEM articles has been decreasing. (2) The remaining economic citations in JEM articles are increasingly older relative to citation patterns within economics. (3) The profile of economic citations in JEM articles is increasingly dissimilar when compared to what is cited within economics. (4) There is decreasing diversity with regards to the share of attention towards different economic subfields in the articles published in JEM when compared to economics. We discuss interpretations of this evidence for estrangement between philosophy of economics and economics. |
| Keywords: | Scientometrics, bibliometrics, digital humanities, diversity, philosophy of economics, economic methodology |
| JEL: | B4 B20 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2024-24 |
| By: | Alexandre Truc (Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, France); François Claveau (Université de Sherbrooke); Catherine Herfeld (Leibniz University Hannover, Germany); Vincent Larivière (Université de Montréal, Canada) |
| Abstract: | This study examines gender diversity among authors in philosophy and methodology of economics, comparing it to the disciplines of economics and philosophy. Using bibliometric methods, we find that philosophy and methodology of economics, as an interdisciplinary field, consistently had a lower share of women authors than its parent disciplines, which are the two social sciences and humanities disciplines that are the furthest from gender parity. Although homogeneity compounding generally characterizes the whole field of philosophy and methodology of economics, one small and temporary subfield, making contributions to heterodox economics, structural realism, and the discussion on pluralism in economics, constituted a pocket of gender diversity. Alongside a more general discussion of possible reasons behind the striking gender imbalance in the field, we also elaborate on possible reasons for the limited size and duration of this pocket of diversity. |
| Keywords: | Gender, Scientometrics, Philosophy of economics, Methodology of Economics |
| JEL: | B4 J16 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2024-25 |
| By: | Anna Airoldi; Petra Moser |
| Abstract: | How does a person’s childhood socioeconomic status (SES) influence their chances to participate and succeed in science? To investigate this question, we use machine-learning methods to link scientists in a comprehensive biographical dictionary, the American Men of Science (1921), with their childhood home in the US Census and with publications. First, we show that children from low-SES homes were already severely underrepresented in the early 1900s. Second, we find that SES influences peer recognition, even conditional on participation: Scientists from high-SES families have 38% higher odds of becoming stars, controlling for age, publications, and disciplines. Using live-in servants as an alternative measure for SES confirms the strong link between childhood SES and becoming a star. Applying text analysis to assign scientists to disciplines, we find that mathematics is the only discipline in which SES influences stardom through the number and the quality of a scientist’s publications. Using detailed data on job titles to distinguish academic from industry scientists, we find that industry scientists have lower odds of being stars. Controlling for industry employment further strengthens the link between childhood SES and stardom. Elite undergraduate degrees explain more of the correlation between SES and stardom than any other control. At the same time, controls for birth order, family size, foreign-born parents, maternal education, patents, and connections with existing stars leave estimates unchanged, highlighting the importance of SES. |
| JEL: | J24 N0 N32 O3 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33063 |