nep-sog New Economics Papers
on Sociology of Economics
Issue of 2007‒01‒02
nine papers chosen by
Jonas Holmstrom
Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration
  1. Academic Journals as Two-Sided Platforms: Empirical Evidence from Data on French Libraries By Dubois, Pierre; Hernandez-Perez, Adriana; Ivaldi, Marc
  2. Hur mäta produktivitet och hur produktiva är svenska professorer i nationalekonomi? Forskningsutvärdering med hjälp av kvantitativa och kvalitativa indikatorer By Sarafoglou, Nikias
  3. Econometrics: A Bird’s Eye View By John Geweke; Joel Horowitz; M. Hashem Pesaran
  4. Which Factors Determine the Grades of Undergraduate Students in Economics? Some Evidence from Spain By Juan J. Dolado; Eduardo Morales
  5. Student Achievement and University Classes: Effects of Attendance, Size, Peers, and Teachers By Pedro Martins; Ian Walker
  6. The Open Method of Coordination as practice - A watershed in European education policy? By Åse Gornitzka
  7. Higher Education as a Form of European Integration: How Novel is the Bologna Process? By Anne Corbett
  8. Lead Them to Water and Pay Them to Drink: An Experiment with Services and Incentives for College Achievement By Joshua Angrist; Daniel Lang; Philip Oreopoulos
  9. Higher Education in India: Seizing the Opportunity By Sanat Kaul
  1. By: Dubois, Pierre; Hernandez-Perez, Adriana; Ivaldi, Marc
    Abstract: This paper analyzes the demand and cost structure of the French market of academic journals, taking into account its intermediary role between researchers, who are both producers and consumers of knowledge. This two sidedness feature will echoes similar problems already observed in electronic markets - payment card systems, video game consoles, etc. - such as the chicken and egg problem, where readers won’t buy a journal if they do not expect its articles to be academically relevant and researchers, that live under the mantra 'Publish or Perish', will not submit to a journal with either limited public reach or weak reputation. After the merging of several databases, we estimate the aggregated nested logit demand system combined simultaneously with a cost function. We identify the structural parameters of this market and find that price elasticities of demand are quite large and margins relatively low, indicating that this industry experiences competitive constraints.
    Keywords: differentiated products models; media industry; two-sided platforms
    JEL: L11 L82
    Date: 2006–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5990&r=sog
  2. By: Sarafoglou, Nikias (Mid Sweden University)
    Abstract: Publicering av forskningsresultat gör det möjligt för forskare att dela med sig av sina kunskaper och att kommunicera med resten av världen. Nästan lika viktig som forskningen är för samhället är utvärderingen av denna forskning. Forskningsevaluering kan ge information till lärare, studenter, administration och allmänhet. Det primära syftet med artikeln är att mäta forskningsproduktionen för professorer (kvantitet och kvalitet) vid svenska nationalekonomiska institutioner med hjälp av information ur internationella bibliometriska databaser. I anknytning till detta diskuteras hur mycket rankningen påverkas av valet av produktivitetsmått och behovet av att vidareutveckla rankningsmetoderna för att öka deras tillförlitlighet. <p>
    Keywords: Research production; research evaluation; bibliometrics
    JEL: B21 D24
    Date: 2006–12–19
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0238&r=sog
  3. By: John Geweke; Joel Horowitz; M. Hashem Pesaran
    Abstract: As a unified discipline, econometrics is still relatively young and has been transforming and expanding very rapidly over the past few decades. Major advances have taken place in the analysis of cross sectional data by means of semi-parametric and non-parametric techniques. Heterogeneity of economic relations across individuals, firms and industries is increasingly acknowledged and attempts have been made to take them into account either by integrating out their effects or by modeling the sources of heterogeneity when suitable panel data exists. The counterfactual considerations that underlie policy analysis and treatment evaluation have been given a more satisfactory foundation. New time series econometric techniques have been developed and employed extensively in the areas of macroeconometrics and finance. Non-linear econometric techniques are used increasingly in the analysis of cross section and time series observations. Applications of Bayesian techniques to econometric problems have been given new impetus largely thanks to advances in computer power and computational techniques. The use of Bayesian techniques have in turn provided the investigators with a unifying framework where the tasks of forecasting, decision making, model evaluation and learning can be considered as parts of the same interactive and iterative process; thus paving the way for establishing the foundation of “real time econometrics”. This paper attempts to provide an overview of some of these developments.
    Keywords: history of econometrics, microeconometrics, macroeconometrics, Bayesian econometrics, nonparametric and semi-parametric analysis
    JEL: C10 C20 C30 C40 C50
    Date: 2006
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1870&r=sog
  4. By: Juan J. Dolado (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, CEPR and IZA Bonn); Eduardo Morales (Harvard University)
    Abstract: This paper analyses the determinants of grades achieved in three core subjects by first-year Economics undergraduate students at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, over the period 2001-2005. Gender, nationality, type of school, specialization track at high school and the grades at the university entry exam are the key factors we examine. Our main findings are that those students who did a technical track at high school tend to do better in mathematics than those who followed a social sciences degree and, that the latter do not perform significantly better than the former in subjects with less degree of formalism and more economic content. Moreover, students from public schools are predominant in the lower (with social sciences or humanities tracks) and upper (with a technical track) parts of the grade distribution, and females tend to perform better than males.
    Keywords: grade achievement, school type, gender, multinomial logit, quantile regressions
    JEL: I21 I29
    Date: 2006–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2491&r=sog
  5. By: Pedro Martins (Queen Mary, University of London, CEG-IST Lisbon and IZA Bonn); Ian Walker (University of Warwick, Princeton University and IZA Bonn)
    Abstract: We examine the empirical determinants of student achievement in higher education, focusing our attention on its small-group teaching component (classes or seminars) and on the role of attendance, number of students per class, peers, and tutors. The empirical analysis is based on longitudinal administrative data from a major undergraduate program where students are allocated to class groups in a systematic way, but one which is plausibly uncorrelated with ability. Although, in simple specifications, we find positive returns to attendance and sizeable differences in the effectiveness of teaching assistants, most effects are not significant in specifications that include student fixed effects. We conclude that unobserved heterogeneity amongst students, even in an institution that imposes rigorous admission criteria and so has little observable heterogeneity, is apparently much more important than observable variation in inputs in explaining student outcomes.
    Keywords: education production functions, attendance, class size, peer effects
    JEL: I2 J2
    Date: 2006–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2490&r=sog
  6. By: Åse Gornitzka
    Keywords: institutionalism; educational policy; Europeanization
    Date: 2006–12–21
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erp:arenax:p0227&r=sog
  7. By: Anne Corbett
    Keywords: multilevel governance; institutionalism; Europeanization; educational policy
    Date: 2006–12–18
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erp:arenax:p0226&r=sog
  8. By: Joshua Angrist; Daniel Lang; Philip Oreopoulos
    Abstract: High attrition rates, delayed completion, and poor achievement are growing concerns at colleges and universities in North America. This paper reports on a randomized field experiment involving two strategies designed to improve these outcomes among first-year undergraduates at a large Canadian university. One treatment group was offered peer advising and tutorial services. Another was offered substantial merit-scholarships for solid, but not necessarily top, first year grades. A third treatment group combined both interventions. Service take-up rates were much higher for students offered both services and scholarships than for those offered services alone. Females also used services more than males. No program had an effect on grades for males. However, first-term grades were significantly higher for females in the two scholarship treatment groups. These effects faded somewhat by year's end, but remain significant for females who planned to take enough courses to qualify for a scholarship. There also appears to have been an effect on retention for females offered both scholarships and services. This effect is large enough to generate an overall increase in retention. On balance, the results suggest that a combination of services and incentives is more promising than either alone.
    JEL: I22 I28 J24
    Date: 2006–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12790&r=sog
  9. By: Sanat Kaul (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations)
    Date: 2006–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:icrier:179&r=sog
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