IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/emetrv/v35y2016i1p2-40.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Meritocracy Voting: Measuring the Unmeasurable

Author

Listed:
  • Peter C. B. Phillips

Abstract

Learned societies commonly carry out selection processes to add new fellows to an existing fellowship. Criteria vary across societies but are typically based on subjective judgments concerning the merit of individuals who are nominated for fellowships. These subjective assessments may be made by existing fellows as they vote in elections to determine the new fellows or they may be decided by a selection committee of fellows and officers of the society who determine merit after reviewing nominations and written assessments. Human judgment inevitably plays a central role in these determinations and, notwithstanding its limitations, is usually regarded as being a necessary ingredient in making an overall assessment of qualifications for fellowship. The present article suggests a mechanism by which these merit assessments may be complemented with a quantitative rule that incorporates both subjective and objective elements. The goal of "measuring merit" may be elusive, but quantitative assessment rules can help to widen the effective electorate (for instance, by including the decisions of editors, the judgments of independent referees, and received opinion about research) and mitigate distortions that can arise from cluster effects, invisible college coalition voting, and inner sanctum bias. The rule considered here is designed to assist the selection process by explicitly taking into account subjective assessments of individual candidates for election as well as direct quantitative measures of quality obtained from bibliometric data. Audit methods are suggested to mitigate possible gaming effects by electors in the peer review process. The methodology has application to a wide arena of quality assessment and professional ranking exercises. Some specific issues of implementation are discussed in the context of the Econometric Society fellowship elections.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter C. B. Phillips, 2016. "Meritocracy Voting: Measuring the Unmeasurable," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(1), pages 2-40, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:emetrv:v:35:y:2016:i:1:p:2-40
    DOI: 10.1080/07474938.2014.956633
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/07474938.2014.956633
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/07474938.2014.956633?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roberts, Kevin, 2015. "Dynamic voting in clubs," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 320-335.
    2. Olav Bjerkholt (ed.), 1995. "Foundations of Modern Econometrics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, volume 0, number 46.
    3. Bjerkholt, Olav, 2015. "Trygve Haavelmo At The Cowles Commission," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(1), pages 1-84, February.
    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. Schoenfeld, Jordan, 2017. "The effect of voluntary disclosure on stock liquidity: New evidence from index funds," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 51-74.

    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. Schmeiser, Steven, 2012. "Corporate board dynamics: Directors voting for directors," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 505-524.
    2. Christian Roessler & Sandro Shelegia & Bruno Strulovici, 2018. "Collective Commitment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(1), pages 347-380.
    3. Bjerkholt, Olav, 2014. "Lawrence R. Klein 1920–2013: Notes on the early years," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 767-784.
    4. Henk Folmer & Olof Johansson-Stenman, 2011. "Does Environmental Economics Produce Aeroplanes Without Engines? On the Need for an Environmental Social Science," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(3), pages 337-361, March.
    5. Acemoglu, Daron & Golosov, Mikhail & Tsyvinski, Aleh, 2011. "Power fluctuations and political economy," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 1009-1041, May.
    6. Jack, William & Lagunoff, Roger, 2006. "Dynamic enfranchisement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(4-5), pages 551-572, May.
    7. Jacques H. Drèze & Charles Figuières & Jean Hindriks, 2006. "Voluntary Matching Grants Can Forestall Social Dumping," CESifo Working Paper Series 1867, CESifo.
    8. Jacques H. Drèze & Charles Figuieres & Jean Hindriks, 2007. "Can Federal Grants Mitigate Social Competition?," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 53(4), pages 596-617, December.
    9. Christian Roessler & Sandro Shelegia & Bruno Strulovici, 2018. "Collective Commitment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(1), pages 347-380.
    10. Daron Acemoglu & Georgy Egorov & Konstantin Sonin, 2012. "Dynamics and Stability of Constitutions, Coalitions, and Clubs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1446-1476, June.
    11. Daron Acemoglu & Georgy Egorov & Konstantin Sonin, 2015. "Political Economy in a Changing World," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(5), pages 1038-1086.
    12. Federico Etro, 2004. "The Political Economy of Fiscal and Monetary Unions," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 63(3-4), pages 289-328, December.
    13. Olav Bjerkholt & Duo Qin, 2010. "Teaching Economics As a Science: The 1930 Yale Lectures of Ragnar Frisch," Working Papers 665, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    14. Charles F. Manski, 2021. "Econometrics for Decision Making: Building Foundations Sketched by Haavelmo and Wald," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(6), pages 2827-2853, November.
    15. Giovanni Maggi & Massimo Morelli, 2006. "Self-Enforcing Voting in International Organizations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1137-1158, September.
    16. Erich Pinzón Fuchs, 2014. "Econometrics as a Pluralistic Scientific Tool for Economic Planning: On Lawrence R. Klein's Econometrics," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 14080, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    17. Michaelides, Panayotis G. & Belegri-Roboli, Athena & Arapis, Gerasimos, 2009. "Early Nonlinear Modelling in Economic Analysis: The Hicks Model for Greece Revisited," MPRA Paper 67112, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Nikitas Konstantinidis, 2007. "Gradualism and Uncertainty in International Union Formation," CESifo Working Paper Series 2076, CESifo.
    19. Roger Lagunoff, 2005. "Markov Equilibrium in Models of Dynamic Endogenous Political Institutions," Game Theory and Information 0501003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Peter C.B. Phillips, 2016. "Tribute to T. W. Anderson," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2081, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification
    • C18 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Methodolical Issues: General

    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:taf:emetrv:v:35:y:2016:i:1:p:2-40. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/LECR20 .

    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.