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on Sociology of Economics |
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Issue of 2013‒06‒04
ten papers chosen by Jonas Holmström Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration |
| By: | Chang, C.L.; McAleer, M.J. |
| Abstract: | Experts possess knowledge and information that are not publicly available. The paper is concerned with forecasting academic journal quality and research impact using a survey of international experts from a national project on ranking academic finance journals in Taiwan. A comparison is made with publicly available bibliometric data, namely the Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Science citations database (hereafter ISI) for the Business - Finance (hereafter Finance) category. The paper analyses the leading international journals in Finance using expert scores and quantifiable Research Assessment Measures (RAMs), and highlights the similarities and differences in the expert scores and alternative RAMs, where the RAMs are based on alternative transformations of citations taken from the ISI database. Alternative RAMs may be calculated annually or updated daily to answer the perennial questions as to When, Where and How (frequently) published papers are cited (see Chang et al. (2011a, b, c)). The RAMs include the most widely used RAM, namely the classic 2-year impact factor including journal self citations (2YIF), 2-year impact factor excluding journal self citations (2YIF*), 5-year impact factor including journal self citations (5YIF), Immediacy (or zero-year impact factor (0YIF)), Eigenfactor, Article Influence, C3PO (Citation Performance Per Paper Online), h-index, PI-BETA (Papers Ignored - By Even The Authors), 2-year Self-citation Threshold Approval Ratings (2Y-STAR), Historical Self-citation Threshold Approval Ratings (H-STAR), Impact Factor Inflation (IFI), and Cited Article Influence (CAI). As data are not available for 5YIF, Article Influence and CAI for 13 of the leading 34 journals considered, 10 RAMs are analysed for 21 highly-cited journals in Finance. The harmonic mean of the ranks of the 10 RAMs for the 34 highly-cited journals are also presented. It is shown that emphasizing the 2-year impact factor of a journal, which partly answers the question as to When published papers are cited, to the exclusion of other informative RAMs, which answer Where and How (frequently) published papers are cited, can lead to a distorted evaluation of journal impact and influence relative to the Harmonic Mean rankings. A linear regression model is used to forecast expert scores on the basis of RAMs that capture journal impact, journal policy, the number of high quality papers, and quantitative information about a journal. The robustness of the rankings is also analysed. |
| Keywords: | robustness;IFI;PI-BETA;STAR;article influence;eigenfactor;h-index;C3PO;impact factor;expert scores;journal quality;RAMs;harmonic mean |
| Date: | 2013–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:eureir:1765038715&r=sog |
| By: | Chang, C.L.; McAleer, M.J.; Oxley, L. |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the practical usefulness of two new journal performance metrics, namely the Eigenfactor score, which may be interpreted as measuring “Journal Influenceâ€, and the Article Influence score, using the Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Science (hereafter ISI) data for 2009 for the 200 most highly cited journals in each of the Sciences and Social Sciences, and compares them with two existing ISI metrics, namely Total Citations and the 5-year Impact Factor (5YIF) of a journal (including journal self citations). It is shown that the Sciences and Social Sciences are different in terms of the strength of the relationship of journal performance metrics, although the actual relationships are very similar. Moreover, the journal influence and article influence journal performance metrics are shown to be closely related empirically to the two existing ISI metrics, and hence add little in practical usefulness to what is already known. These empirical results are compared with existing results in the literature. |
| Keywords: | eigenfactor;5-year impact factor (5YIF);journal performance metrics;total citations;research assessment measures;journal and article influence |
| Date: | 2012–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:eureir:1765037619&r=sog |
| By: | Mueller-Langer, F.; Watt, R. (Tilburg University, Tilburg Law and Economics Center) |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:kubtil:2012019&r=sog |
| By: | El Ouardighi, Fouad (ESSEC Business School); Kogan, Konstantin (Bar-Ilan University, Faculty of Social Sciences); Vranceanu , Radu (ESSEC Business School) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes how faculty members dynamically allocate their efforts between improving their research and teaching skills, taking into account the organizational structures and incentives implemented by academic institutions. The model builds on the assumption that organizational structures have an impact on the nature of spillover effects between teaching and research competencies. We analyze the dynamic equilibrium under unilateral and bilateral spillovers, using the no-spillover case as a benchmark. The bilateral spillover case is the most appealing as it achieves the highest overall performance; however, the nature of the equilibrium and the career paths can be quite different depending on the parameters of the problem such as the obsolescence of competencies or the strength of the spillover effect. This finding provides interesting insights on what could be the most productive configuration of a higher education institution. |
| Keywords: | Teaching; Research; Competency spillovers; Effort allocation; Faculty management |
| JEL: | A23 I23 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:essewp:dr-13007&r=sog |
| By: | Hottenrott, Hanna; Lawson, Cornelia (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | Based on a sample of research units in science and engineering at German universities, this study reports survey evidence showing that research grants impact research content. Research units that receive funds from industry are more likely to source ideas from the private sector. The higher the share of industry funding on the units’ total budget, the more likely that large firms influenced the research agenda. Public research grants, on the other hand, are associated with a higher importance of conferences and scientific sources. What is more, the different sources of ideas impact scientific output. Research units that source research ideas from small and medium-sized firms (SMEs) patent more, but not more successful than others in terms of the impact of their inventions on future patents. If, on the other hand, research units source ideas from large firms we find them to publish less and with lower impact on future scientific work. |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201215&r=sog |
| By: | Fernández-Zubieta,Ana; Geuna, Aldo; Lawson, Cornelia (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | This article analyses the impact of mobility on researchers’ productivity. We address the relationship by developing a theoretical framework based on the job-matching approach for academics and the idea that productivity is driven by capital availability and peer effects. The empirical analysis is based on the entire careers of a sample of 171 UK academic researchers, spanning from 1957 to 2005. We analyse the impact of job changes on post mobility output in 3 and 6 year periods. Contrary to common wisdom, we do not find evidence that mobility per se increases academic performance. Mobility to better department s has a positive but weakly significant impact while downward mobility results in decreasing researchers’ productivity. Once we control for mobility associated with career progress, the results indicate significant strong positive impact for mobility to higher quality department. We estimated a set of alternative specifications of mobility finding evidence of an increase of productivity for mobility from industry to academia but only after an initial negative effect. In most cases mobility is associated with short-term decrease of productivity due to hypothesised adjustment costs. |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201306&r=sog |
| By: | Lawson Cornelia; Sterzi Valerio (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the characteristics of persistent academic inventors and how they are influenced by their personal attributes, PhD institution, and first invention. Using a novel dataset on 555 UK academic inventors, we find that the quality of the first invention is the best predictor for subsequent participation in the patenting process. We further find evidence for a positive training effect whereby researchers that were trained at universities that had already established commercialisation units have a higher propensity to patent persistently. In addition, researchers that gained first patenting experience in industry are able to benefit from stronger knowledge flows and receive more citations than their purely academic peers. |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201201&r=sog |
| By: | Lissoni, Francesco; Fabio, Montobbio (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | Authorship and inventorship contribute to the reputation of individual scientists and are distributed across several individuals, due to the importance of teamwork in both science and technology. For academic teams that both publish and patent their research results, we compare the social and legal norms that affect the negotiation over the distribution of authorship and inventorship. We use text-mining techniques to identify 680 "patent-publication pairs" (related sets of patents and publications), for a sample of Italian academic scientists. On average, the number of co-authors is larger than the number of co-inventors, especially in medical-related fields. First and last authors have a lower probability of being excluded from inventorship. However, the probability of exclusion also declines with seniority, as expected from social norms. Women have a significant higher probability to be excluded, other things being equal. Long-lasting doubts on the reliability of authorship as a tool for allocating scientific credit are reinforced, and can be extended to inventorship. Results for attribution rights in science, as we obtain here, raise questions and provide insights on other settings in which attribution rights are both relevant and distributed within teams. |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201221&r=sog |
| By: | Antonelli Cristiano; Crepax Nicola; Fassio Claudio (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | The analysis of the evolution of the academic chairs of an academic system is a promising area of investigation. The exploration of the evolution of the size and the disciplinary composition of the stock of academic chairs in Italy in the years 1900- 1959 provides an opportunity to understand the contribution of scientific knowledge to economic growth. The basic assumption is that knowledge is not a homogeneous activity, but rather a bundle of highly differentiated disciplines that have a differentiated impact on economic growth. Advances in scientific knowledge are likely to have a direct, positive effect on economic growth according to their fungibility, appropriability and complementarity with other sources of technological knowledge and hence exploitation conditions. Advances in scientific knowledge that can be converted into technological knowledge with high levels of fungibility, appropriability and complementarity have a higher chance to affect economic growth. The econometric analysis confirms that advances in engineering and chemistry, as proxied by the number of chairs, had much a stronger output elasticity than in other scientific fields. These results have important implications for research policy as they highlight the differences in the economic effects of academic disciplines. |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201206&r=sog |
| By: | Espey, Molly |
| Abstract: | The scholarship of teaching and learning entails systematic reflection and analysis of aspects of teaching or teaching methods and their impact on student learning. When effective teaching methods can be identified and replicated by others, scholarship shared through publication has the potential to enhance teaching and learning on a wider scale. Whether it is analysis of a small aspect of a single course or a complete overhaul of the course structure or method of delivery, the scholarship of teaching and learning has the potential to significantly impact higher education. This paper outlines five scholarship of teaching and learning projects undertaken during this author’s career. |
| Keywords: | Scholarship of teaching, scholarship of learning, economic education, team based learning, teaching of economics, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession, A, A2, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea13:149027&r=sog |