Top researchers in Economics are concentrated in just 8 institutions in the US, an NBER study finds. The study gathered data on the educational and professional affiliations of 6000 award winners of 170 notable winners in three broad areas: natural sciences, enginnering and social sciences. Each of these three areas was broken up into six fields each, giving a total of 18 key fields.
All fields show a declining level of concentration, except Economics which is a clear outlier. Economics shows a high and ascending concentration over time. This is visible in the most notable of awards, the Nobel prize where again Economics shows high concentration whereas chemistry, physics and medicine show low concentration.
The authors examine the reasons why this is so. They hypthesise that three factors are relevant: the dependence on physical equipment, the development stage of a field and the role of prestige. In Economics, physical equipment is not important so researchers are highly mobile, it is a relatively new field and prestige plays a more important role in Economics than in other fields.
How exactly does prestige matter? Well, the more famous economists receive more citations than academics in other fields. Institutional prestige can be measured by the ranking of an institution. The top institutions in Economics remained at the top more than in other fields. Consequently, the best names tended to gravitate towards the top institutions, making for more concentration of talent.
Why should we be concerned? The economists at the top institutions control, in a way, publications in the top journals. This means that only ideas that they are comfortable with may get through. In other words, concentration in Economics may mean a monopoly over ideas. New, original and heretical ideas may not find adequate expression. That is bad for the advancement of knowledge.
The more difficult question, which the paper does not address, is: how do we prevent rising concentration in Economics? Part of the answer may be for the non-elite institutions to accept publications in journals other than the top ones for evaluation and tenure. A group of faculty of high calibre, whether from within an institution or from outside, may judge the quality of publications that have not made it to the top three or four publications and give ratings. Institutions may give extra weights to ideas that are outside the mainstream. If the stranglehold over ideas of the top journals wanes, so could the strangehold of the top economists and the institutions they belong to.
Institutions may also give a little more weight for the application of ideas or the impact on practice of academics. Where academics significantly influence policy-making, credit can be given for the purpose of granting tenure. One way or another, it is important that a few institutions do not arrogate to themselves the role of gate-keepers of ideas in Economics.
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