IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/van/wpaper/vuecon-sub-13-00009.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An Empirical Guide to Hiring Assistant Professors in Economics

Author

Listed:
  • John P. Conley

    (Vanderbilt University)

  • Ali Sina Onder

    (Universität Bayreuth)

Abstract

We study the research productivity of new graduates of top Ph.D. programs in economics. We find that class rank is as important as departmental rank as predictors of future research productivity. For example the best graduate from UIUC or Toronto in a given year will have roughly the same number of American Economic Review (AER) equivalent publications at year six after graduation as the number three graduate from Berkeley, U. Penn or Yale. We also find that research productivity of graduates drops off very quickly with class rank at all departments. For example, even at Harvard, the median graduate has only 0.04 AER paper at year six, an untenurable record at almost any department. These results provide guidance on how much weight to give to place of graduation relative to class standing when hiring new assistant professors. They also suggest that even the top departments are not doing a very good job of training students to be successful research economists for any not in the top of their class.

Suggested Citation

  • John P. Conley & Ali Sina Onder, 2013. "An Empirical Guide to Hiring Assistant Professors in Economics," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 13-00009, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:van:wpaper:vuecon-sub-13-00009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/VUECON/VUECON-13-00009.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John P. Conley & Mario J. Crucini & Robert A. Driskill & Ali Sina Önder, 2013. "The Effects Of Publication Lags On Life-Cycle Research Productivity In Economics," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(2), pages 1251-1276, April.
    2. Paul Oyer, 2006. "Initial Labor Market Conditions and Long-Term Outcomes for Economists," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 143-160, Summer.
    3. Tom Coupé, 2003. "Revealed Performances: Worldwide Rankings of Economists and Economics Departments, 1990-2000," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(6), pages 1309-1345, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Are the ‘Top Schools’ Really that Good?
      by ? in Economic Incubator on 2013-08-16 21:35:00
    2. Top Economics graduate programs are not as good as you think
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2013-08-15 20:03:00
    3. 'Top Economics Graduate Programs are Not as Good as You Think'
      by ? in Economist's View on 2013-08-16 13:15:00
    4. Are the ‘Top Schools’ Really that Good?
      by Brandon Dupont in Economic Incubator on 2013-08-16 20:35:20
    5. 'Top Economics Graduate Programs are Not as Good as You Think'
      by Mark Thoma in Economist's View on 2013-08-16 05:15:00
    6. You can call me Al
      by noreply@blogger.com (Angus) in Kids Prefer Cheese on 2013-06-21 23:23:00
    7. Krugman to Farmer: "Show Me Your Trailer, or I Won't Watch Your Movie"
      by Stephen Williamson in Stephen Williamson: New Monetarist Economics on 2013-08-19 02:51:00
    8. David and Goliath in PhD programs
      by Salil Mehta in Statistical Ideas on 2014-01-04 08:40:00
    9. School and Student Rank for Economics Ph.D.s
      by Dave in voluntaryXchange on 2013-09-01 21:30:42

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jie Gong & Ang Sun & Zhichao Wei, 2018. "Choosing the Pond: On-the-Job Experience and Long-Run Career Outcomes," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(2), pages 860-872, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John P. Conley & Ali Sina Onder, 2014. "The Research Productivity of New PhDs in Economics: The Surprisingly High Non-success of the Successful," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 205-216, Summer.
    2. Andrew F. Daughety & Jennifer F. Reinganum, 2014. "The Effect of Third-Party Funding of Plaintiffs on Settlement," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2552-2566, August.
    3. John P. Conley & Ali Sina Önder & Benno Torgler, 2016. "Are all economics graduate cohorts created equal? Gender, job openings, and research productivity," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 108(2), pages 937-958, August.
    4. Önder Ali Sina & Yilmazkuday Hakan, 2020. "Thirty-Five Years of Peer-Reviewed Publishing by North American Economics PhDs: Quantity, Quality, and Beyond," Open Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 70-85, January.
    5. Anne E Winkler & Sharon G Levin & Paula E Stephan & Wolfgang Gl&aauml;nzel, 2014. "Publishing Trends in Economics across Colleges and Universities, 1991–2007," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 560-582, September.
    6. John P. Conley & Ali Sina Önder & Benno Torgler, 2012. "Are all High-Skilled Cohorts Created Equal? Unemployment, Gender, and Research Productivity," Working Papers 2012.86, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    7. Krapf, Matthias & Ursprung, Heinrich W. & Zimmermann, Christian, 2017. "Parenthood and productivity of highly skilled labor: Evidence from the groves of academe," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 147-175.
    8. William W. Olney, 2017. "English Proficiency And Labor Market Performance: Evidence From The Economics Profession," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(1), pages 202-222, January.
    9. repec:ner:leuven:urn:hdl:123456789/327130 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. John P. Conley & Ali Sina Önder & Benno Torgler, 2012. "Are all High-Skilled Cohorts Created Equal? Unemployment, Gender, and Research Productivity," Working Papers 2012.86, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    11. Zhang, Congshan & de Figueiredo, John M., 2018. "Are recessions good for government hires? The effect of unemployment on public sector human capital," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 1-5.
    12. Giacomo De Giorgi & Michele Pellizzari & William Gui Woolston, 2012. "Class Size And Class Heterogeneity," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 795-830, August.
    13. Jean Heck & Peter Zaleski, 2006. "The most frequent contributors to the elite economics journals: Half century of contributions to the “Blue ribbon eight”," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 30(1), pages 1-37, March.
    14. Illoong Kwon & Eva Meyersson Milgrom & Seiwoon Hwang, 2010. "Cohort Effects in Promotions and Wages: Evidence from Sweden and the United States," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 45(3).
    15. Julie L. Hotchkiss & Robert E. Moore, 2022. "Some Like it Hot: Assessing Longer-Term Labor Market Benefits from a High-Pressure Economy," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 18(2), pages 193-243, June.
    16. repec:zbw:bofitp:2020_015 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Chen, Jihui Susan & Liu, Qihong & Billger, Sherrilyn M., 2012. "Where Do New Ph.D. Economists Go? Evidence from Recent Initial Job Placements," IZA Discussion Papers 6990, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Franklin G. Mixon & Jr. & Kamal P. Upadhyaya, 2019. "Research Productivity and the Ranking of Junior Economics Faculty: An Appraisal of Alternative Metrics," Advances in Management and Applied Economics, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 9(2), pages 1-2.
    19. Stephen Bazen & Patrick Moyes, 2012. "Elitism and stochastic dominance," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 39(1), pages 207-251, June.
    20. Önder, Ali Sina & Schweitzer, Sascha & Yilmazkuday, Hakan, 2021. "Specialization, field distance, and quality in economists’ collaborations," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4).
    21. Johanna Catherine Maclean, 2016. "Does Leaving School in an Economic Downturn Persistently Affect Body Weight? Evidence from Panel Data," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 122-148, January.
    22. Rolf Ketzler & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2009. "Publications: German economic research institutes on track," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 80(1), pages 231-252, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Research Productivity; Academic Labor Markets; Hiring; Publication; Economics Departments; Graduate Training;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A1 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics
    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:van:wpaper:vuecon-sub-13-00009. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/econ/wparchive/index.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.