The Value of Peripatetic Economists: A Sesqui-Difference Evaluation of Bob Gregory

Daniel Hamermesh

No 1580, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: I ask generally whether a country can benefit from the temporary importation of human capital, and specifically whether a program that attracts large groups of academic visitors to a distant country benefits it by generating additional scholarly research on local issues. Using the list of visitors to the ANU Research School's Economics Program, I estimate this impact from responses to a survey in which visitors described their research before and after their visit and designated as a "control person" another economist who had a similar career but had not visited. The matching of the control may be viewed as being along both observable and (to the researcher) unobservable characteristics of the "treated" and control individuals. The results show a highly significant ceteris paribus impact of such visits on the visitor's subsequent research. Valuing this extra research based on the scholarly citations it received and the effects of citations on salaries shows a substantial monetary impact of visiting economists. Less tangible additional impacts in terms of research style also clearly result.

Keywords: control groups; bibliometrics; human capital; evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A14 C21 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2005-05
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in: Economic Record, 2006, 82 (257), 138-149

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp1580.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Value of Peripatetic Economists: A Sesqui‐Difference Evaluation of Bob Gregory (2006)
Working Paper: The Value of Peripatetic Economists: A Sesqui-Difference Evaluation of Bob Gregory (2005)
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:dp1580

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

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 ().