UChicago Econ Paper: ‘The Tyranny of the Top Five’ – Chicago Maroon

peter.suber's bookmarks 2022-09-26

Summary:

"University of Chicago professor and a Nobel Prize–winning economist James Heckman and pre-doctoral fellow at the Center for the Economics of Human Development Sidharth Moktan, published a paper last month on the importance of publishing in “Top Five” (T5) journals for the careers of young economists.

Their paper, titled "Publishing and Promotion in Economics: The Tyranny of the Top Five," was published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). It argues that economics departments across the country tend to use a job candidate’s publishing record in the so-called “Top Five” journals as a criterion in deciding whether or not to grant them tenure.

In the economic academia, the Top Five refers to the five most prestigious journals in general economics, The American Economic ReviewEconometricaThe Journal of Political EconomyThe Quarterly Journal of Economics, and The Review of Economic Studies.

The paper contains a formal statistical analysis showing a young economics scholar’s Top Five publication has a powerful influence on his or her likelihood of getting tenure. It also contains a survey of the perceptions of junior economists that corroborates this situation.

Heckman and Moktan find the status quo problematic, as it can incentivize “careerism.” According to their paper, the demand for young scholars to publish in Top Five journals “shapes research agendas. For many young economists, if a paper on any topic cannot be published in a Top Five outlet, the topic is not worth pursuing.” ...

Moktan finds it worrying that the Top Five have a “quality-independent” effect on a candidate’s likelihood of getting tenure, which means that a candidate whose portfolio contains Top Five publications has an edge over another who does not, even if their quality of research is controlled to be the same. Yet the paper contains empirical evidence that this may the case for many...."

 

Link:

https://chicagomaroon.com/26225/news/uchicago-econ-paper-tyranny-top-five/

Updated:

09/26/2022, 11:44

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » peter.suber's bookmarks

Tags:

oa.journals oa.prestige oa.monopoly oa.economics oa.ssh oa.ecr oa.quality oa.risks oa.obstacles oa.assessment oa.p&t oa.ssh

Date tagged:

09/26/2022, 15:44

Date published:

10/25/2018, 11:44