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