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The mobility of economists and the diffusion of policy ideas: The influence of economics on national policies

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  • Kogut, Bruce
  • Macpherson, J. Muir

Abstract

Economic policies are innovations that have important effects on countries and their social welfare. Far from being simply technical in nature, such policies are often ideological innovations. This paper examines three economic policy innovations (privatization, central bank independence, and pension reform) and shows how the diffusion of these policies depended not only upon the mobility of American-trained Ph.D. economists to adopting countries, but also the state of agreement among economists on the value of these policy innovations. By estimating hazard models for adoption times, the effects of mobility and policy agreement are shown to explain the adoption patterns. The implications of this analysis are to treat the creation and diffusion of economic policies as innovations that are subject to trial and error revision as well as to the changing consensus within an academic community.

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  • Kogut, Bruce & Macpherson, J. Muir, 2011. "The mobility of economists and the diffusion of policy ideas: The influence of economics on national policies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(10), pages 1307-1320.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:40:y:2011:i:10:p:1307-1320
    DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2011.06.008
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    3. Ganguli, Ina, 2014. "Immigration & Ideas: What Did Russian Scientists 'Bring' to the US?," SITE Working Paper Series 30, Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics.
    4. Martin Ravallion, 2013. "Knowledgeable bankers? The demand for research in World Bank operations," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 1-29, March.
    5. Ina Ganguli, 2015. "Immigration and Ideas: What Did Russian Scientists "Bring" to the United States?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(S1), pages 257-288.
    6. Knack,Stephen & Parks,Bradley Christopher & Harutyunyan,Ani & DiLorenzo,Matthew, 2020. "How Does the World Bank Influence the Development Policy Priorities of Low-Income and Lower-Middle Income Countries ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9225, The World Bank.
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    10. Gregory N. Price & Rhonda V. Sharpe, 2020. "Is the Economics Knowledge Production Function Constrained by Race in the USA?," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 11(2), pages 614-629, June.
    11. Karaulova, Maria & Edler, Jakob, 2023. "Bringing research into policy: Understanding context-specific requirements for productive knowledge brokering in legislatures," Discussion Papers "Innovation Systems and Policy Analysis" 77, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI).
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    13. Stephan Kaplan, 2016. "partisan Technocratic Cycles in Latin America," Working Papers 2016-28, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.

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