1,721,167 research outputs found
How Does the Market Use Citation Data? The Hirsch Index in Economics
Full text linkA large literature following Hirsch (2005) has proposed citation- based indexes of individuals' research output. This paper views Hirsch's index as one member of a larger class and examines how well different indexes align with labor market outcomes for young, tenured economists at 50 US departments. Variants that emphasize smaller numbers of highly-cited papers are more aligned with labor market outcomes than is Hirsch's original index. It also examines how the market assesses jointly authored work, and how indexes can be adjusted for differences in citations across fields and years of experience.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (SES-05508897)Toulouse Network for Information TechnologyMicrosoft Researc
Do Schools Matter for High Math Achievement? Evidence from the American Mathematics Competitions
Full text linkThis paper uses data from the American Mathematics Competitions to examine the rates at which different high schools produce high-achieving math students. There are large differences in the frequency with which students from seemingly similar schools reach high achievement levels. The distribution of unexplained school effects includes a thick tail of schools that produce many more high-achieving students than is typical. Several additional analyses suggest that the differences are not primarily due to unobserved differences in student characteristics. The differences are persistent across time, suggesting that differences in the effectiveness of educational programs are not primarily due to direct peer effects
Is Peer Review in Decline?
Full text linkOver the past decade, there has been a decline in the fraction of papers in top economics journals written by economists from the highest-ranked economics departments. This paper documents this fact and uses additional data on publications and citations to assess various potential explanations. Several observations are consistent with the hypothesis that the Internet improves the ability of high-profile authors to disseminate their research without going through the traditional peer-review process. (JEL A14, O30)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (SES-0550897)Toulouse Network for Information TechnologyInstitute for Advanced Study (Princeton, N.J.
Dynamics of Open Source Movements
Full text linkThis paper considers a dynamic model of the evolution of open-source software projects, focusing on the evolution of quality, contributing programmers, and users who contribute customer support to other users. Programmers who have used open-source software (OSS) are motivated by reciprocal altruism to publish their own improvements. The evolution of the open-source project depends on the form of the altruistic benefits: in a base case the project grows to a steady-state size from any initial condition; whereas adding a need for customer support makes zero-quality a locally absorbing state. We also analyze competition by commercial firms with OSS projects. Optimal pricing policies again vary: in some cases the commercial firm will set low prices when the open-source project is small; in other cases it mostly waits until the open-source project has matured.Toulouse Network for Information TechnologyNational Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant SES-0550897)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant SES-0351500
Concentration in Knowledge Output:A Case of Economics Journals
Full text linkJournals moderate knowledge activity in economics. The activity of publishing article in professional journal forms significant part of knowledge output. Output of economics articles has been growing over the time. We examine an important question: Is there any case of institutional or location concentration in knowledge production? This paper analyses concentration indicators specific to economics journals and explores link between publication process and concentration. The analysis of various concentration measures present evidence for institutional-geographic-area-author concentration in Knowledge production in Economics. High concentration levels indicate possibility of institutional lock-in. The literature provides evidence for myopic refereeing, editorial favouritism and the presence of ‘lock-in’ effect. The achievement in journal publication is influenced by factors like institutional affiliation, propitious circumstances etc. Discussion carried out in this paper hints the possibility of causal link between unfair process and unfair outcome.Knowledge,Lotka's Law,Fourier Series
Strategic Entry Deterrence and the Behavior of Pharmaceutical Incumbents Prior to Patent Expiration
Full text linkThis paper develops a new approach to testing for strategic entry deterrence and applies it to the behavior of pharmaceutical incumbents before patent expiration. It examines a cross section of markets, determining whether behavior is nonmonotonic in market size. Under some conditions, investment levels will be monotone in market size if firms do not invest to deter entry. Strategic investments to deter entry, however, may result in nonmonotonic investment because they are unnecessary in small markets, and impossible in large ones. Consistent with an entry-deterrence motivation is the finding that incumbents in medium-sized markets advertise less prior to patent expiration. (JEL D92, G31, L11, L21, L65)Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and PeaceAlfred P. Sloan FoundationNational Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant SES-0550897)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant SES-0219205)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant SES-9818534
A Search Cost Model of Obfuscation
Full text linkThis paper develops search-theoretic models in which it is individually rational for firms to
engage in obfuscation. It considers oligopoly competition between firms selling a homogeneous
good to a population of rational consumers who incur search costs to learn each firm's
price. Search costs are endogenized: obfuscation is equated with unobservable actions that
make it more time-consuming to inspect a product and learn its price. One model involves
search costs that are convex in the time spent shopping. Here, we show that even slight
convexity can dramatically change the equilibrium price distribution. A second model examines
an informational linkage between current and future search costs: consumers are
initially unaware of the exogenous component of search costs. Here, a signal-jamming
mechanism can also lead to equilibrium obfuscation.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant SES- 0550897)Toulouse Network for Information TechnologyNational Science Foundation (U.S.) (Graduate Fellowship Program
Fast convergence in evolutionary models: A Lyapunov approach∗
No full textEvolutionary models in which N players are repeatedly matched to play a game have “fast convergence ” to a set A if the models both reach A quickly and leave A slowly, where “quickly ” and “slowly ” refer to whether the expected hitting and exit times remain finite in the N → ∞ limit. We provide Lyapunov criteria which are sufficient for reaching quickly and leaving slowly, and apply them to a number of examples to illustrate how fast convergence depends on factors such as the degree of risk-dominance, noise levels, the nature of the decision rule, and the nature of the information on which players base their decisions
A Theory of Rule Development
Full text linkThis article develops a model with endogenously coarse rules. A principal hires an agent to take an action. The principal knows the optimal state-contingent action, but cannot communicate it perfectly due to communication constraints. The principal can use previously realized states as examples to define rules of varying breadth. We analyze how rules are chosen under several assumptions about how rules can be amended. We explore the inefficiencies that arise and how they depend on the ability to refine rules, the principal’s time horizon and patience, and other factors. Our model exhibits path dependence in that the efficacy of rule development depends on the sequence of realizations of the state. We interpret this as providing a foundation for persistent performance differences between similar organizations and explore the role of different delegation structures in ameliorating the effects of bounded communication.Sloan School of Management (Program on Innovation in Markets and Organizations)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (SES-0550897
Random matching in adaptive dynamics
No full textThis paper studies the effect of randomness in per-period matching on the long-run outcome of non-equilibrium adaptive processes. If there are many matchings between each strategy revision, the randomness due to matching will be small; our question is when a very small noise due to matching has a negligible effect. We study two different senses of this idea, and provide sufficient conditions for each. The less demanding sense corresponds to sending the matching noise to zero while holding fixed all other aspects of the adaptive process. The second sense in which matching noise can be negligible is that it does not alter the limit distribution obtained as the limit of the invariant distributions as an exogenous “mutation rate” goes to zero
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