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Publishing as Prostitution? Choosing Between One‘s Own Ideas and Academic Failure

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  • Bruno S. Frey

Abstract

Survival in academia depends on publications in refereed journals. Authors only get their papers accepted if they intellectually prostitute themselves by slavishly following the demands made by anonymous referees without property rights on the journals they advise. Intellectual prostitution is neither beneficial to suppliers nor consumers. But it is avoidable. The editor (with property rights on the journal) should make the basic decision of whether a paper is worth publishing or not. The referees only give suggestions on how to improve the paper. The author may disregard this advice. This reduces intellectual prostitution and produces more original publications.

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Paper provided by Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich in its series IEW - Working Papers with number 117.

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Handle: RePEc:zur:iewwpx:117
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Keywords: academic market; publications; economics of economics; intellectual prostitution;

Find related papers by JEL classification:

  • A11 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Role of Economics; Role of Economists
  • Z00 - Other Special Topics - - General - - - General

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Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Why Journals?
    by Ekkehart Schlicht in RePEc blog on 2009-12-16 00:25:26
  2. Academics as Prostitutes
    by andrewdsmith in The Past Speaks on 2011-02-03 14:37:10
  3. Getting rid of academic journals or changing the review system?
    by Andrew in Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science on 2009-12-29 13:09:00

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