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Geographic mobility and research productivity in a selection of top world economics departments

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Listed:
  • Pedro Albarrán

    (Universidad de Alicante)

  • Raquel Carrasco

    (Universidad Carlos III)

  • Javier Ruiz-Castillo

    (Universidad Carlos III)

Abstract

In this paper, we study the spatial characteristics of a sample of 2605 highly productive economists, and a subsample of 332 economists with outstanding productivity. Individual productivity is measured in terms of a quality index that weights the number of publications up to 2007 in four journal classes. We analyze the following four issues. (1) The “funneling effect” towards the US and the clustering of scholars in the top US institutions. (2) The high degree of collective inbreeding in the training of elite members. (3) The partition of those born in a given country into brain drain (who work in a country different from their country of origin), brain circulation (who study and/or work abroad followed by a return to the home country), and stayers (whose entire academic career takes place in their country of origin). We also study the partition of the economists working in 2007 in a given geographical area into nationals (stayers plus brain circulation) and migrants (brain drained from other countries). (4) Finally, we estimate the research output in different geographical areas in two instances: when we classify researchers by the institution where they work in 2007, or by their country of origin.

Suggested Citation

  • Pedro Albarrán & Raquel Carrasco & Javier Ruiz-Castillo, 2017. "Geographic mobility and research productivity in a selection of top world economics departments," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(1), pages 241-265, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:111:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-017-2245-x
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-017-2245-x
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    3. Liu, Meijun & Hu, Xiao, 2021. "Will collaborators make scientists move? A Generalized Propensity Score analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1).
    4. Rodrigo Dorantes-Gilardi & Aurora A. Ramírez-Álvarez & Diana Terrazas-Santamaría, 2023. "Is there a differentiated gender effect of collaboration with super-cited authors? Evidence from junior researchers in economics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(4), pages 2317-2336, April.
    5. Abdelghani Maddi & Lesya Baudoin, 2022. "The quality of the web of science data: a longitudinal study on the completeness of authors-addresses links," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(11), pages 6279-6292, November.
    6. Konstantinos Chatzimichael & Pantelis Kalaitzidakis & Vangelis Tzouvelekas, 2017. "Measuring the publishing productivity of economics departments in Europe," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(2), pages 889-908, November.
    7. Fan Jiang & Nian Cai Liu, 2020. "New wine in old bottles? Examining institutional hierarchy in laureate mobility networks, 1900–2017," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 1291-1304, November.
    8. Chang, Ying-Han & Huang, Mu-Hsuan, 2023. "Analysis of factors affecting scientific migration move and distance by academic age, migrant type, and country: Migrant researchers in the field of business and management," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    9. Maksym Polyakov & Serhiy Polyakov & Md Sayed Iftekhar, 2017. "Does academic collaboration equally benefit impact of research across topics? The case of agricultural, resource, environmental and ecological economics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(3), pages 1385-1405, December.
    10. Cheng Peng & Zhepeng (Lionel) Li & Chaojiang Wu, 2023. "Researcher geographic mobility and publication productivity: an investigation into individual and institutional characteristics and the roles of academicians," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(1), pages 379-406, January.
    11. Tolga Yuret, 2020. "Co-worker network: How closely are researchers who published in the top five economics journals related?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(3), pages 2301-2317, September.
    12. Alejandro Vega-Muñoz & Paloma Gónzalez-Gómez-del-Miño & Juan Felipe Espinosa-Cristia, 2021. "Recognizing New Trends in Brain Drain Studies in the Framework of Global Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-27, March.
    13. Han, Fang & Zhang, Ruhao & Zhang, Shengtai & Yuan, Junpeng, 2024. "International mobility characteristics, effects of, and effects on elite scientists," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1).
    14. John O’Hagan, 2021. "Top graduate programmes in economics: Historical evolution and recent evidence," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(3), pages 378-395, August.
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