nep-sog New Economics Papers
on Sociology of Economics
Issue of 2017‒11‒05
two papers chosen by
Jonas Holmström
Axventure AB

  1. Gender Representation in Economics Across Topics and Time: Evidence from the NBER Summer Institute By Anusha Chari; Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham
  2. Frontier Knowledge and Scientific Production: Evidence from the Collapse of International Science By Alessandro Iaria; Carlo Schwarz; Fabian Waldinger

  1. By: Anusha Chari; Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham
    Abstract: We document the representation of female economists on the conference programs at the NBER Summer Institute from 2001-2016. Over the period from 2013-2016, women made up 20.6 percent of all authors on scheduled papers. However, there was large dispersion across programs, with the share of female authors ranging from 7.3 percent to 47.7 percent. While the average share of women rose slightly from 18.5% since 2001-2004, a persistent gap between finance, macroeconomics and microeconomics subfields remains, with women consisting of 14.4 percent of authors in finance, 16.3 percent of authors in macroeconomics, and 25.9 percent of authors in microeconomics. We examine three channels potentially affecting female representation. First, using anonymized data on submissions, we show that the rate of paper acceptance for women is statistically indistinguishable to that of men. Second, we find that the share of female authors is comparable to the share of women amongst all tenure-track professors, but is ten percentage points lower than the share of women among assistant professors. Finally, within conference program, we find that when a woman organizes the program, the share of female authors and discussants is higher.
    JEL: A11 J15 J16
    Date: 2017–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23953&r=sog
  2. By: Alessandro Iaria; Carlo Schwarz; Fabian Waldinger
    Abstract: We show that WWI and the subsequent boycott against Central scientists severely interrupted international scientific cooperation. After 1914, citations to recent research from abroad decreased and paper titles became less similar (evaluated by Latent Semantic Analysis), suggesting a reduction in international knowledge flows. Reduced international scientific cooperation led to a decline in the production of basic science and its application in new technology. Specifically, we compare productivity changes for scientists who relied on frontier research from abroad, to changes for scientists who relied on frontier research from home. After 1914, scientists who relied on frontier research from abroad published fewer papers in top scientific journals, produced less Nobel Prize-nominated research, introduced fewer novel scientific words, and introduced fewer novel words that appeared in the text of subsequent patent grants. The productivity of scientists who relied on top 1% research declined twice as much as the productivity of scientists who relied on top 3% research. Furthermore, highly prolific scientists experienced the starkest absolute productivity declines. This suggests that access to the very best research is key for scientific and technological progress.
    Keywords: frontier knowledge, scientific production, international knowledge flows, WWI
    JEL: O3 N3 N4 O31 O5 N30 N40 J44 I23
    Date: 2017–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1506&r=sog

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