IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tin/wpaper/19970124.html

Acquiring Knowledge over the Economist’s Lifetime

Author

Listed:
  • Hendrik P. van Dalen

    (Erasmus University Rotterdam and NIDI, The Hague)

Abstract

In this paper the reading behaviour of economists is examined to see whether particular typesof knowledge - basic and applied - imply different investment patterns. As it turns out, thereading intensity of advanced theoretical and empirical literature declines with three to fourpercent per year of experience, although researchers and economists with a mathematicalbackground start with a higher initial stock of knowledge of this type of literature. Businessand government economists concentrate on applied literature and news magazines; a type ofliterature which is not frequently read by mathematical economists. However, themathematical economists catch up with their non-mathematical colleagues in 12 to 15 yearstime. Furthermore, the introduction of graduate schools in Dutch academia has not broughtabout a fundamental change in reading habits. The biggest factor in explaining the divergencein reading behaviour among economists remains the mathematical, c.q. econometricsbackground in undergraduate training.

Suggested Citation

  • Hendrik P. van Dalen, 1997. "Acquiring Knowledge over the Economist’s Lifetime," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 97-124/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:19970124
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/97124.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lovell, Michael C, 1973. "The Production of Economic Literature: An Interpretation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 27-55, March.
    2. Sharon M. Oster & Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1998. "Aging And Productivity Among Economists," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(1), pages 154-156, 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. Kara, Ahmet Faruk & Kara, YAVUZ SELİM & Kara, GAZİ İSHAK & Kara, AMAÇ, 2006. "Önde Gelen İktisat Doktora Programlarında Temel Makro İktisat Eğitimi [Graduate Macroeconomics Education In Leading Ph.D Programs In Economics]," MPRA Paper 5487, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. 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.
    2. Cherkashin, Ivan & Demidova, Svetlana & Imai, Susumu & Krishna, Kala, 2009. "The inside scoop: Acceptance and rejection at the journal of international economics," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 120-132, February.
    3. Benoit Dostie, 2011. "Wages, Productivity and Aging," De Economist, Springer, vol. 159(2), pages 139-158, June.
    4. Daniel S. Hamermesh & Lea‐Rachel Kosnik, 2024. "Why do older scholars slow down?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(1), pages 488-499, January.
    5. Jean Mirucki, 2001. "Analyse comparative de la visibilité des articles en économie industrielle : 1991-1998," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 77(3), pages 455-469.
    6. William J. Moore & Robert J. Newman & Peter J. Sloane & Jeremy D. Steely, 2002. "Productivity Effects of Research Assessment Exercises," Departmental Working Papers 2002-15, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.
    7. Koichiro ONISHI & Sadao NAGAOKA, 2012. "Life-cycle Productivity of Industrial Inventors: Education and other determinants," Discussion papers 12059, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    8. A. Maltsev., 2015. "History of Economic Thought, Quo vadis?," VOPROSY ECONOMIKI, N.P. Redaktsiya zhurnala "Voprosy Economiki", vol. 3.
    9. Fouad El Ouardighi & Konstantin Kogan & Radu Vranceanu, 2013. "Publish or Teach ? : Analysis of the Professor's Optimal Career Plan," Working Papers hal-00823514, HAL.
    10. Walter Novaes, 2007. "A Pesquisa em Economia no Brasil: Uma avaliação empírica dos conflitos entre quantidade e qualidade," Textos para discussão 553, Department of Economics PUC-Rio (Brazil).
    11. Karen Mumford & Cristina Sechel, 2020. "Pay and Job Rank among Academic Economists in the UK: Is Gender Relevant?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(1), pages 82-113, March.
    12. Krishna Muniyoor, 2022. "The Structure of Scholarly Publishing: a Case of Economics Research in India," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 13(3), pages 1801-1818, September.
    13. Richard Pomfret & Liang Choon Wang, 2003. "Evaluating The Research Output Of Australian Universities' Economics Departments," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(4), pages 418-441, December.
    14. Joseph Macri & Dipendra Sinha, 2006. "Rankings Methodology for International Comparisons of Institutions and Individuals: an Application to Economics in Australia and New Zealand," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 111-156, February.
    15. Michael P. Cameron, 2023. "The measurement of structural ageing – an axiomatic approach," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 1-22, March.
    16. Maciej Lis, 2017. "Productivity based selection to retirement: Evidence from EU-SILC," IBS Working Papers 02/2017, Instytut Badan Strukturalnych.
    17. Warman, Casey & Woolley, Frances & Worswick, Christopher, 2006. "The Evolution of Male-Female Wages Differentials in Canadian Universities: 1970-2001," Queen's Economics Department Working Papers 273575, Queen's University - Department of Economics.
    18. Rauber Michael & Ursprung Heinrich W., 2008. "Life Cycle and Cohort Productivity in Economic Research: The Case of Germany," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 9(4), pages 431-456, December.
    19. McDowell, John & Singell Jr., Larry D. & Stater, Mark, 2009. "Congratulations or condolences? The role of human capital in the cultivation of a university administrator," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 258-267, April.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    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:tin:wpaper:19970124. 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: Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tinbenl.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.