EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Publishing and Promotion in Economics: The Tyranny of the Top Five

James Heckman and Sidharth Moktan (moktan@uchicago.edu)
Additional contact information
Sidharth Moktan: University of Chicago

No 11868, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between placement of publications in Top Five (T5) journals and receipt of tenure in academic economics departments. Analyzing the job histories of tenure-track economists hired by the top 35 U.S. economics departments, we find that T5 publications have a powerful influence on tenure decisions and rates of transition to tenure. A survey of the perceptions of young economists supports the formal statistical analysis. Pursuit of T5 publications has become the obsession of the next generation of economists. However, the T5 screen is far from reliable. A substantial share of influential publications appear in non-T5 outlets. Reliance on the T5 to screen talent incentivizes careerism over creativity. The appendices for this paper are available here: https://hceconomics.uchicago.edu/file-upload/appendices-publishing-and-promotion-economics-tyranny-top-five

Keywords: economics publishing; career concerns; tenure and promotion practices; citations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A14 I23 J44 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 61 pages
Date: 2018-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul, nep-hpe, nep-lma and nep-sog
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (46)

Published - published in: Journal of Economic Literature, 58 (2), 2020, 419 - 70

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp11868.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Chapter: Publishing and promotion in economics - The tyranny of the Top Five (2020) Downloads
Journal Article: Publishing and Promotion in Economics: The Tyranny of the Top Five (2020) Downloads
Working Paper: Publishing and Promotion in Economics: The Tyranny of the Top Five (2018) Downloads
Working Paper: Publishing and Promotion in Economics: The Tyranny of the Top Five (2018) Downloads
Working Paper: Publishing and Promotion in Economics: The Tyranny of the Top Five (2018) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11868

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
library@iza.org

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte (hinte@iza.org).

 
Page updated 2025-03-30
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11868