E. Roy Weintraub's efficient academic market hypothesis opens the door to a variety of socially dubious practices: from Lysenko toadyism to "you scratch my citation count and I'll scratch yours."
Which has greater network externalities: an isolated article or a focused multi-authored examination? This is an empirical not an apriori or ex cathedra question.
Robert Leeson
----- Original Message -----
From: "E. Roy Weintraub" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 7:49:11 AM
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Nobel Prizes for Economic Science: Intended and Unintended Consequences
On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 6:01 AM, Robert Leeson wrote: Overvaluing citation counts is part of the process that "converts so many promising intellectuals into second-rate, pedantic, unenterprising faculty."
Whatever the source of this quotation, it is rather beside the point of my post, and Medema's. Various government agencies in many countries use such metrics as part of appraisal schemes. These are the "signals" to young faculty, and their mentors. To ignore such messages is to dance with professional self-destruction.
In other sciences, use of such measures is well-understood and reasonably employed in professional discourse. Saying to one's student "a plague on them all" or "do excellent work and pay them no mind" is akin to the advice Polonius gave to Laertes.
--
E. Roy Weintraub
Professor of Economics
Fellow, Center for the History of Political Economy
Duke University
www.econ.duke.edu/~erw/erw.homepage.html
E. Roy Weintraub's non sequitur ("For myself, I find that exactly one essay I published in a (non-HOPE) edited collection has ever been cited" therefore an essay on Nobel prizes, deregulation and financial crises will be ignored) is reminiscent of Craufurd Goodwin's account of Lionel Robbins' attempt to scuttle the proposed History of Political Economy. Except that Robbins was concerned with social benefits - the influence of HET - rather than self-interest. Overvaluing citation counts is part of the process that "converts so many promising intellectuals into second-rate, pedantic, unenterprising faculty."
Robert Leeson
----- Original Message -----
From: "E. Roy Weintraub" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, August 9, 2011 12:55:37 PM
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Nobel Prizes for Economic Science: Intended and Unintended Consequences
As we have spent the summer at Duke with an INET sponsored program directed to Ph.D students interested in the history of economics, I am now more than usually aware of the incentive problems faced by young scholars in our discipline.
As a result of this experience I would like to express some general concerns about projects such as this one, without I hope suggesting any particular judgment about this specific project.
As I observe the rise of appraisal metrics for the history of economics, and related evaluation measures for departments of economics outside the United States (where most historians of economics work), I have worries about encouraging young scholars especially to take on projects like contributed book chapters, encyclopedia entries, and the like. Even editing collections of papers appears to be work that, as a substitute for publishing articles in refereed journals, will retard success at the junior level. For more senior scholars the issues may be different, but contributing essays for edited volumes, and editing those volumes, has a positive impact for the scholar, the scholar's department, or the scholar's university only if a number of people read and cite those essays or volumes. However I have yet to see well-documented (as opposed to anecdotal) citation analyses for contributions to these kinds of edited volumes in recent times. For myself, I find that exactly one essay I published in a (non-HOPE) edited collection has ever been cited.
With these concerns, I see the ethics of for-profit edited volume publishers as muddled. Historians of economics, for publishers, are content-providers for long periods of copyright time. Selling one marginal cost zero (to the publisher) electronic download in 2023 of a 2011 edited volume contribution makes sense for the publisher. It may (or may not) make sense for an editor. How does it "benefit" the author, a young scholar currently seeking tenure or promotion? If citations matter and the number of non peer reviewed publications does not matter in academic personnel matters, I cannot in good conscience do other than tell a young scholar seeking my advice about participating in such projects to do something else instead. And for senior scholars thinking about such projects, I'd suggest asking about the number of copies the publisher intends to print, what they will sell for, and which libraries will acquire the books, as these all influence potential citations.
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