Abstract
Recent research by Brogaard et al. (J Econ Perspect 32:179–194, 2018) explores whether or not the receipt of tenure gives academics the employment protection necessary to induce them to attempt more ground-breaking or “home run” research. They discover that the number of home run publications, defined as those that are among the top 10 percent most cited of all papers published in a given year, peaks in the year of tenure for economists, and falls thereafter, thus supporting the notion that a reduction in risk-taking on the part of academic researchers appears to have occurred in recent decades. This study explores a possible alternative explanation for the prior findings that involves the exertion of research production “effort” by way of the ex ante supply of critiques of a manuscript by informal commenters. This represents an author-supplied input or effort in the production process that is related to quality control, and that can be captured through the information provided in the acknowledgement footnote of a published study. The data examined in this study suggest that if academics make an adjustment on this margin of effort during the course of an academic career, it is to increase research effort in an attempt to produce truly ground-breaking, home run research.
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Notes
It should be noted here that Brogaard et al. (2018) do not cite newer, and what some view as more compelling, economic theories of the institution of academic tenure. For example, the theoretical contribution by Cater et al. (2017) suggests that the observed declining research output profile over the life cycle should be interpreted not as evidence of shirking, or as what may appear to be shirking (see Brogaard et al. 2018), but rather as a result of universities finding it optimal to induce declining research effort over the life cycle.
Admittedly, use of information on “thanked commenters” as an indication of (one aspect of) an author’s level of effort, as in Laband et al. (2002) and Mixon and Sawyer (2005), is not without limitations in the context of an analysis of productivity over one’s career, as in Brogaard et al. (2018) and the present study. For example, a tenured faculty member who has established a reputation may well be invited to present his or her research at more conferences and institutions. Accepting those invitations would amount to greater effort at quality-control as, ceteris paribus, a larger number of audiences would be expected to yield more “thanked commenters.” On the other hand, it may also be the case that a tenured faculty member’s established reputation may yield larger audiences for a given presentation. Although this, too, would yield a greater expected number of “thanked commenters,” it would not necessarily represent greater effort on the part of the author. It may instead represent greater levels of effort or interest on the part of colleagues.
Neither of these includes publication in the brief papers section, or the Papers & Proceedings issue, of the American Economic Review. The data collection process follows the parameters described in Brogaard et al. (2018).
These are among the top five (or better) economics journals in various ranking studies.
The test statistic of 0.695 in this case follows an F distribution with 1 and 90 degrees of freedom.
Cater et al.’s (2017) advancement of what is arguably a more compelling economic theory of the institution of academic tenure notwithstanding, Brogaard et al. (2018: 180) acknowledge that “[t]rying to do something innovative and failing looks a lot like shirking, so motivating risky innovation may require the assurance of tenure (Manso 2011).” Thus, given the expected decline in research output associated with taking on greater risk, one might argue that Brogaard et al. (2018) should have concluded that a decline in high-end publications is an indication that tenured faculty are, in fact, taking on more risky research projects, not fewer or less risky ones. As such, the need for further research into the relationships between tenure, risk taking and home runs in research remains.
References
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Acknowledgements
The author thanks an anonymous referee and Timothy Taylor for helpful comments. The usual caveat applies.
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Mixon, F.G. Do academics swing for the fences after tenure? Analysis of attributions data from economics research. Scientometrics 116, 2155–2160 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2819-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2819-2