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on Sociology of Economics |
| By: | Fabio Bertolotti; Kyle R. Myers; Wei Yang Tham |
| Abstract: | We develop a method to estimate producers’ productivity beliefs in settings where output quantities and input prices are unobservable, and we use it to evaluate allocative efficiency in the market for science. Our model of researchers’ labor supply shows that their willingness to pay for their two key inputs, funding and time, reveals their underlying productivity beliefs. We estimate the model’s parameters using data from a nationally representative survey of research-active professors from all major fields of science. We find that the distribution of research productivity is highly skewed. Using these estimates, we assess the market’s allocative efficiency by comparing actual input allocations to optimal allocations given various objectives. Overall, the market for science is moderately efficient at maximizing output and researchers’ utility: actual input levels are positively correlated with the optimal levels implied by the model. However, the wedge between researchers’ actual and optimal input levels is often significant and difficult to predict. Our estimates imply that total budgets would need to increase by roughly 40% under actual allocations in order to achieve the same growth in scientific output that we predict under alternative allocations of the current budget. Scaling to the population level, this equates to billions of dollars in funding — there are substantial gains from developing new ways of identifying and supporting productive scientists. |
| JEL: | D24 M5 O3 O30 O31 O32 O38 O40 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34000 |
| By: | David de la Croix (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)); Mara Vitale (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)) |
| Abstract: | 131 popes ruled the Catholic Church from the year 1000 to 1800. Using the database we constructed on early European academia, we find that 21 of them held academic positions prior to their election. We show that these professors who would become popes were not different from non-academic popes in terms of productivity (number of elected cardinals and saints, number of bulls promulgated), but generally came from humbler backgrounds. An interesting pattern emerges: the 21 academic popes were all elected before 1625. From this pattern, we conjecture three complementary explanations. (1) With the Scientific Revolution, early modern universities became more secular or declined compared to their medieval predecessors. (2) The papacy was captured by Roman aristocratic families during the Early Modern Period, which barred outsiders from accessing it. (3) Following the Council of Trent, seminaries provided an alternative path for religious knowledge. |
| Keywords: | Social Mobility, Church and Universities, Human Capital in History, Early Modern Institutions, Historical Political Economy |
| JEL: | N33 I25 D63 |
| Date: | 2025–07–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2025011 |