What is worth more?
1 JFE or 3 JBFs
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Depends on the school.
At a top 50 place JBFs are worthless, so clearly the JFE.
At a teaching place that just counts pubs, 3 >1.
I'm at a 75ish school and I would definitely prefer the JFE (no brainer). I would also prefer to hire someone with just the JFE. I want smart colleagues that are capable of publishing in the top journals, not someone who churns out a lot of mediocre research.
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I'm at top 50-70. I'd want the JFE for myself instead of 3 solid Bs ( tho, I think everyone considers JBF a low B). But I'd rather hire the guy w 3 solid Bs.Why would I want a JFE for myself but hire a guy with only a string of Bs? It could be to protect my status in the department. So I am not threatened.
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Yup, that's part of it, but only a small part. I'm not in the mood to elaborate further. I gotta life. Peace out.
Why would I want a JFE for myself but hire a guy with only a string of Bs? It could be to protect my status in the department. So I am not threatened.
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'Yup, that's part of it, but only a small part. I'm not in the mood to elaborate further. I gotta life. Peace out.'
This is why you never want to take job at a department with no one publishing in top journals. They will try to pull you down (indirectly) if you try too hard. Your better off going to a Fed than a top 50 - 100 place.
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3 JBFs could indicate a lot of good ideas, but the results only showed a small economic impact. Should you penalize somebody because the intuition was right but the results were weak?
OTOH, 3 JBFs could indicate a lot of good ideas that were never fully explored. In this case, I'm OK with penalizing somebody who didn't take the time to expand the topic into the A level.
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It is always hard to make such comparisons given the heterogeneity in the quality of articles published in finance journals (that usually make decisions based on one referee). The quality of articles published in jfe is on average higher than those in jbf, but for sure you can find in the latter some articles that could have been published in the former. For this reason it is safer to read articles and also search for the impact they have made (eg. number of citations).
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This is a good point. It is exacerbated even further if the JFE is right our of grad school (or worse, right out of grad school at Rochester). You don't know whether the idea was his/hers, or that of an advisor. With 3 JBFs, you know for sure that you've got someone capable of producing JBF level research.
1 could mean he got lucky, lucky 3 indicates a repeat performer if at a lower level, so picking the guy with 3 is a surer bet, the other guy is a risk. so depends how risk averse you are.