Academe
Paper Session
Friday, Jan. 3, 2025 10:15 AM - 12:15 PM (PST)
- Chair: Wendy Stock, Montana State University
Gender Bias in Coauthorship in Economics Profession
Abstract
Utilizing a unique dataset compiled from the CVs of faculty members across the top 96 US economics departments, this study investigates the impact of coauthorship on the gender gap in publications for top economics journals. In particular, this study investigates the reasons why female faculty members are matched with lower quality co-authors compared to their male counterparts and examines the impact of such matching on their likelihood of publishing in prestigious economics journals. The quality of a co-author is measued based on the ranking of their affiliated institution and their track record of publications in top-tier economics journals. By using fixed effects such as field of research, employing institution, year of PhD completion, undergraduate institution ranking, country of birth, alongside a comprehensive range of demographic factors, the study shows that collaborating with less productive coauthors significantly disadvantages female faculty across various career aspects within the economics profession. Specifically, the poor quality matching in the top 20 ranked schools can explain overall 10 fewer publications, around 1,806 fewer citations, and a decrease of 3.5 in Google Scholar i-index publications. Furthermore, this lower quality coauthorship reduces the probability of publishing in top 5 journals (AER, QJE, JPE, Econometrica and Restud) by 0.36 and 6-20 ranked journal by 0.48. The study does not find a difference in coauthor quality for women at lower-ranked institutions compared to men. These results are consistent with the presence of gender bias within top-ranked US institutions. Furthermore, the findings offer a potential explanation for the underrepresentation of female faculty at these schools.Graduate Student and Faculty Mental Health: Evidence from European Economics Departments
Abstract
We study the mental health of graduate students and faculty at 14 Economics departments in Europe. Using clinically validated surveys sent out in the fall of 2021, we find that 34.7% of graduate students experience moderate to severe symptoms of depression or anxiety and 17.3% report suicidal or self-harm ideation in a two-week period. Only 19.2% of students with significant symptoms are in treatment. 15.8% of faculty members experience moderate to severe depression or anxiety symptoms, with prevalence higher among non-tenure track (42.9%) and tenure track (31.4%) faculty than tenured (9.6%) faculty. We estimate that the COVID-19 pandemic accounts for about 74% of the higher prevalence of depression symptoms and 30% of the higher prevalence of anxiety symptoms in our European sample relative to a 2017 U.S. sample of economics graduate students. We also document issues in the work environment, including a high incidence of sexual harassment, and make recommendations for improvement.The Cost of Knowledge: Academic Journal Pricing and Research Dissemination
Abstract
The research community is deeply concerned about the high prices of academic journals and restrictions on access to published research. To evaluate the effects of these barriers, we compile a comprehensive database of articles, journals, and publishers in three major academic fields (economics, physics and electronic engineering). To identify the effects of increasing prices and publishers’ market power, we exploit variations in publishers' product portfolios that do not directly affect an article's outcome. In addition, we inquire into university-publisher contracts and the timing of journals moving out of publisher paywalls to investigate the inner workings of these barriers. Elevated prices and substantial publisher power significantly diminish the volume of article citations and collaborative research. While these barriers operate somewhat differently across academic fields, the hindrance effects consistently prove more pronounced for lower-ranked institutions and developing countries.Paper is available at:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4691124
The Evolution of Economics Research Collaboration
Abstract
We document the evolution of economics research collaboration patterns over time from 1990s.We formulate a general model accounting for individual preferences and the costs and returns of
collaboration as opposed to solo-authored work, and we use COVID as an exogenous cost shifter
to validate our hypotheses. We compare economics working papers in common repositories
from 2010 to 2024 to capture any sudden deviation from trends during COVID. Our analysis
suggests that the number of solo-authored papers has decreased, and the percentage of papers with
four or more authors has increased, yet the frequency of inter-institution collaboration has
decreased. Some of these patterns persist beyond the COVID years. Our results suggest that
while economics research had become more collaborative in the years leading up to COVID,
COVID provided an additional significant boost to the depth and breadth of collaboration.
The Politics of Academic Research
Abstract
We develop a novel measure of political slant in research to examine whether political ideology influences the content and use of academic research. Our measure examines the frequency of citations from think tanks with different political ideologies and allows us to examine both the supply and demand for research. We find that research in Economics and Political Science displays a liberal slant, while Finance and Accounting research exhibits a conservative slant, and these differences cannot be accounted for by variations in research topics. We also find that the ideological slant of researchers is positively correlated with that of their Ph.D. institution and research conducted outside universities appears to cater more to the political party of the current President. Finally, political donations data confirms that the ideological slant we measure based on think tank citations aligns with the political values of researchers. Our findings have important implications for the structure of research funding.JEL Classifications
- A1 - General Economics