IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ejw/journl/v1y2004i3p498-514.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The National Research Council Ranking of Research Universities: Its Impact on Research in Economics

Author

Listed:
  • Randall G. Holcombe

Abstract

Administrators at many universities are using the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) measures of departmental performance to assess the performance of their economics departments. The NRC methodology measures faculty publications, citations, and grants in specific ways, which gives departments an incentive to enhance their performance as measured by the NRC metrics. This affects departmental hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions, and gives faculty an incentive to do the type of research that can produce more publications, citations, and grants as measured by the NRC. The NRC criteria count only a subset of publications, citations, and grants, so using that metric rewards research that the NRC counts over research that produces publications, citations, and grants that the NRC does not count. This favors mainstream work over more heterodox approaches to economics, favors expensive research programs that can be federally funded, and tends to make research departments more homogeneous.

Suggested Citation

  • Randall G. Holcombe, 2004. "The National Research Council Ranking of Research Universities: Its Impact on Research in Economics," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 1(3), pages 498-514, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:ejw:journl:v:1:y:2004:i:3:p:498-514
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econjwatch.org/File+download/281/ejw_ia_dec04_holcombe.pdf?mimetype=pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://econjwatch.org/325
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lucas, Robert Jr, 1976. "Econometric policy evaluation: A critique," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 19-46, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bruno S. Frey, 2006. "Evaluitis � Eine Neue Krankheit," IEW - Working Papers 293, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    2. Margit Osterloh & Bruno S. Frey, 2009. "Research governance in academia: are there alternatives to academic rankings?," IEW - Working Papers 423, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    3. Martin Gregor, 2006. "Hodnocení ekonomických pracovišť a ekonomů: Koho, proč, čím a jak [A survey of rankings of economic departments: Global, american, european and national]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2006(3), pages 394-414.
    4. Margit Osterloh & Bruno S. Frey, 2010. "Academic rankings and research governance," IEW - Working Papers 482, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    5. Daniel B. Klein & Eric Chiang, 2004. "The Social Science Citation Index: A Black Box—with an Ideological Bias?," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 1(1), pages 134-165, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Adnan Haider Bukhari & Safdar Ullah Khan, 2008. "A Small Open Economy DSGE Model for Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 47(4), pages 963-1008.
    2. Yariv, Leeat & Jackson, Matthew O., 2018. "The Non-Existence of Representative Agents," CEPR Discussion Papers 13397, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. KAMKOUM, Arnaud Cedric, 2023. "The Federal Reserve’s Response to the Global Financial Crisis and its Effects: An Interrupted Time-Series Analysis of the Impact of its Quantitative Easing Programs," Thesis Commons d7pvg, Center for Open Science.
    4. Hendry, David F. & Clements, Michael P., 2003. "Economic forecasting: some lessons from recent research," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 301-329, March.
    5. Vitek, Francis, 2006. "Measuring the Stance of Monetary Policy in a Small Open Economy: A Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Approach," MPRA Paper 802, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Zsolt Darvas, 2013. "Monetary transmission in three central European economies: evidence from time-varying coefficient vector autoregressions," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 40(2), pages 363-390, May.
    7. Luca Benati & Paolo Surico, 2009. "VAR Analysis and the Great Moderation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1636-1652, September.
    8. Donald L. Kohn, 2008. "Lessons for central bankers from a Phillips curve framework," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    9. Ftiti, Zied & Aguir, Abdelkader & Smida, Mounir, 2017. "Time-inconsistency and expansionary business cycle theories: What does matter for the central bank independence–inflation relationship?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 215-227.
    10. Christian Johnson & George G Kaufman, 2007. "Un banco, con cualquier otro nombre…," Boletín, CEMLA, vol. 0(4), pages 185-199, Octubre-d.
    11. Samir Ben Ali, 2013. "Estimating The New Keynesian Phillips Curve For Tunisia: Empirical Issues," Middle East Development Journal (MEDJ), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 5(03), pages 1-17.
    12. Poterba, James M. & Summers, Lawrence H., 1983. "Dividend taxes, corporate investment, and `Q'," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 135-167, November.
    13. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2007_032 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Rother, Philipp C., 1998. "European monetary integration and the demand for money," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 691-711, August.
    15. Sarah Mouabbi & Jean‐Guillaume Sahuc, 2019. "Evaluating the Macroeconomic Effects of the ECB's Unconventional Monetary Policies," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(4), pages 831-858, June.
    16. He, Yong, 2018. "Can the visible and invisible hands coexist in land pricing?," MPRA Paper 88770, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Hurtado, Samuel, 2014. "DSGE models and the Lucas critique," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 44(S1), pages 12-19.
    18. Janine Aron & John Muellbauer, 2006. "Housing Wealth, Credit Conditions and Consumption," CSAE Working Paper Series 2006-08, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    19. Matthew Plosser & João A. C. Santos, 2014. "Banks' incentives and the quality of internal risk models," Staff Reports 704, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    20. Lozej, Matija & Rannenberg, Ansgar, 2017. "The macroeconomic effects of the regulatory LTV and LTI ratios in the Central Bank of Ireland's DSGE model," Economic Letters 04/EL/17, Central Bank of Ireland.
    21. Jean Boivin & Marc P. Giannoni, 2006. "Has Monetary Policy Become More Effective?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(3), pages 445-462, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    National Research Council; faculty evaluation; economic research; academic publications; research grants; departmental rankin;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A11 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Role of Economics; Role of Economists
    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics
    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ejw:journl:v:1:y:2004:i:3:p:498-514. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jason Briggeman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edgmuus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.