IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/4906.html

Aging and Productivity, Rationality and Matching: Evidence from Economists

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel S. Hamermesh

Abstract

Economists' productivity, as measured by publication in leading journals, declines very sharply with age. Additional evidence shows that this is a rational response to economic incentives and/or changing physical or mental abilities: There is no difference by age in the probability that an article submitted to a leading journal will be accepted. The probability of acceptance does show increasing heterogeneity with age that is related to the author's quality, consistent with models of optimal investment in human capital and especially with occupational matching models.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1994. "Aging and Productivity, Rationality and Matching: Evidence from Economists," NBER Working Papers 4906, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4906
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w4906.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sauer, Raymond D, 1988. "Estimates of the Returns to Quality and Coauthorship in Economic Academia," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(4), pages 855-866, August.
    2. Tuckman, Howard P & Leahey, Jack, 1975. "What Is an Article Worth?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(5), pages 951-967, October.
    3. Ehrenberg, Ronald G, 1992. "The Flow of New Doctorates," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 830-875, June.
    4. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1994. "Facts and Myths about Refereeing," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 153-163, Winter.
    5. Miller, Robert A, 1984. "Job Matching and Occupational Choice," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(6), pages 1086-1120, December.
    6. Stigler, George J & Stigler, Stephen M & Friedland, Claire, 1995. "The Journals of Economics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(2), pages 331-359, April.
    7. Blank, Rebecca M, 1991. "The Effects of Double-Blind versus Single-Blind Reviewing: Experimental Evidence from The American Economic Review," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1041-1067, December.
    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. Ronald G. Ehrenberg & Paul J. Pieper & Rachel A. Willis, 1995. "Would Reducing Tenure Probabilities Increase Faculty Salaries?," NBER Working Papers 5150, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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. Bruno Frey, 2005. "Problems with Publishing: Existing State and Solutions," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 173-190, April.
    2. Bruno S. Frey, "undated". "Publishing as Prostitution? Choosing Between One�s Own Ideas and Academic Failure," IEW - Working Papers 117, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    3. Jinyoung Kim & Kanghyock Koh, 2014. "Incentives for Journal Editors," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(1), pages 348-371, February.
    4. Marshall H. Medoff, 2003. "Editorial Favoritism in Economics?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 70(2), pages 425-434, October.
    5. Ofer H. Azar, 2005. "The Review Process in Economics: Is It Too Fast?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 72(2), pages 482-491, October.
    6. Tombazos, Christis G. & Dobra, Matthew, 2014. "Formulating research policy on expert advice," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 166-181.
    7. Sungbin Youk & Hee Sun Park, 2019. "Where and what do they publish? Editors’ and editorial board members’ affiliated institutions and the citation counts of their endogenous publications in the field of communication," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(3), pages 1237-1260, September.
    8. Besancenot, Damien & Vranceanu, Radu, 2008. "Can incentives for research harm research? A business schools' tale," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 1248-1265, June.
    9. Stephane R. ROBIN, 2002. "The effect of supervision on Ph.D. duration, publications and job outcomes," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2002041, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    10. Ragan Jr, James F. & Warren, John T. & Bratsberg, Bernt, 1999. "How similar are pay structures in 'similar' departments of economics?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 347-360, June.
    11. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2018. "Citations in Economics: Measurement, Uses, and Impacts," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(1), pages 115-156, March.
    12. Ruth Ben-Yashar & Shmuel Nitzan, 2001. "Are Referees Sufficiently Informed About The Editor'S Practice?," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 1-11, August.
    13. Jens Prüfer & David Zetland, 2010. "An auction market for journal articles," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 379-403, December.
    14. David Card & Stefano DellaVigna, 2020. "What Do Editors Maximize? Evidence from Four Economics Journals," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(1), pages 195-217, March.
    15. Atal, Vidya, 2010. "Do journals accept too many papers?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 229-232, May.
    16. Siow, Aloysius, 1997. "Some evidence on the signalling role of research in academia," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 271-276, July.
    17. João Ricardo Faria & Franklin G. Mixon, 2021. "The Marginal Impact of a Publication on Citations, and Its Effect on Academic Pay," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 8217-8226, September.
    18. Yihui Lan & Kenneth W. Clements & Zong Ken Chai, 2023. "How Productive Are Economics and Finance PhDs?," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 56(4), pages 442-461, December.
    19. Gaines Liner, 2001. "Core authors and rankings in economics," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 29(4), pages 459-468, December.
    20. Glenn Ellison, 2002. "The Slowdown of the Economics Publishing Process," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(5), pages 947-993, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts

    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:nbr:nberwo:4906. 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: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.