If I may, I'd like to introduce a distinction into this thread, as we 
may be communicating past one another. I fully agree with Deirdre who 
makes the strong and moral point that the only way we as professionals 
can properly evaluate one another's work, research, career 
accomplishments etc. is to read the work in question, struggle with it 
perhaps, and talk about it respectfully with colleagues engaged in the 
same activity as we are, be they departmental colleagues or university 
committee colleagues. Department chairs should be urged to act in this 
way as well in "evaluating" their faculty. These processes can be 
usefully lobbied and changed by noise and exposure of foolishness, as 
Deirdre suggests.

There is another level though. I refer here to national councils, like 
those who administer the REA in England, and related "ministries" in 
France, Italy, The Netherlands, etc. who are not acting in individual 
cases, but rather allocating resources among institutions in their 
countries, and across schools within universities. Asking accountants to 
read research product is not helpful. And the political process in say 
England, a process which benefits Oxbridge and LSE, is hardly likely to 
be swayed by historians of economics. At the margin, are not our English 
colleagues better served by our funded conference invitations than our 
expressions of outrage to their whatever titled ministers of higher 
education?

E. Roy Weintraub