The Role of Connections in Academic Promotions
Abstract
This paper analyzes the role of connections in academic promotions. We exploit evidence from centralized evaluations in Spain, where evaluators are randomly as- signed to promotion committees. We nd that prior connections between candidates and evaluators have a dramatic impact on candidates' success. For instance, the presence of a co-author or an advisor in the committee is equivalent to a standard deviation increase in candidates' research output. The e ect of a weaker link, such as a member of candidate's doctoral thesis committee, is one fourth as large. The source of the premium enjoyed by connected candidates depends on the nature of their relationship with committee members. In the case of weak links, informa- tional gains tend to dominate evaluation biases. Candidates promoted by a weak link turn out to be more productive in the future relative to other promoted candi- dates. However, consistently with the potential existence of favoritism, candidates promoted by a strong connection exhibit a signi cantly worse research record both before and after the evaluation.Download Info
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Paper provided by Universidad Carlos III, Instituto sobre Desarrollo Empresarial "Carmen Vidal Ballester" in its series Business Economics Working Papers with number id-12-02.Length:
Date of creation: Sep 2012
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:cte:idrepe:id-12-02
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Related research
Keywords: Academic promotion; Connections; Evaluation bias; Information asymmetries;Other versions of this item:
- Zinovyeva, Natalia & Bagues, Manuel F., 2012. "The Role of Connections in Academic Promotions," IZA Discussion Papers 6821, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
- J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations
- M51 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Personnel Economics - - - Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2012-09-30 (All new papers)
- NEP-SOG-2012-09-30 (Sociology of Economics)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- Zinovyeva, Natalia & Bagues, Manuel F., 2011.
"Does Gender Matter for Academic Promotion? Evidence from a Randomized Natural Experiment,"
IZA Discussion Papers
5537, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
- Natalia Zinovyeva & Manuel F. Bagues, 2010. "Does gender matter for academic promotion? Evidence from a randomized natural experiment," Working Papers 2010-15, FEDEA.
- Durante, Ruben & Labartino, Giovanna & Perotti, Roberto, 2011.
"Academic Dynasties: Decentralization and Familism in the Italian Academia,"
CEPR Discussion Papers
8645, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
- Ruben Durante & Giovanna Labartino & Roberto Perotti, 2011. "Academic Dynasties: Decentralization and Familism in the Italian Academia," NBER Working Papers 17572, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Combes, Pierre-Philippe & Linnemer, Laurent & Visser, Michael, 2008.
"Publish or peer-rich? The role of skills and networks in hiring economics professors,"
Labour Economics,
Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 423-441, June.
- Pierre-Philippe Combes & Laurent Linnemer & Michael Visser, 2006. "Publish or peer-rich ? The role of skills and networks in hiring economics professors," Research Unit Working Papers 0604, Laboratoire d'Economie Appliquee, INRA.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Clément Bosquet & Pierre-Philippe Combes, 2012.
"Are Academics Who Publish More Also More Cited? Individual Determinants of Publication and Citation Records,"
Working Papers
halshs-00793647, HAL.
- Clément Bosquet & Pierre-Philippe Combes, 2012. "Are academics who publish more also more cited? Individual determinants of publication and citation records," AMSE Working Papers 1236, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, Marseille, France.
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