I knew it was just a matter of time until he got cancelled over there.
https://twitter.com/Econ_4_Everyone/status/1661723092253564928
JA List getting delisted on Twitter
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Not following. Everyone seems to agree with him, or the ones who don't are staying quiet.
If anything, what's politically incorrect these days is saying the opposite. Saying "No, top-5 or bust! There are way too many useless papers out there and we should only care about the very best." Go try to tweet something like that and see what happens. Not saying I necessarily agree with those views.
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OP is probably that mentaI patient who can't understand simple tweets.
Not following. Everyone seems to agree with him, or the ones who don't are staying quiet.
If anything, what's politically incorrect these days is saying the opposite. Saying "No, top-5 or bust! There are way too many useless papers out there and we should only care about the very best." Go try to tweet something like that and see what happens. Not saying I necessarily agree with those views. -
easy for JL to say this when he gets 10 top 5s per year.
It's like this with everything. Academics calling for change are really, if ever, actually affected.
Huh? It seems to make him more credible, no? If he were a panicky 5th year AP, frantically trying to get the top 5 he needed for tenure, we might suspect his call for change was just a personal lament in disguise. But if anything, this call is against his own interests because if top 5's lose relative value, so does his publication record.
There are cases where your point seems valid. Like the senior prof advocating for higher tenure standard he would not have met. But I think you are off base if that is intended to be a criticism.
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Exactly. It is much more credible coming from the inside mafia than e.g. a mexican blogger. The call to open up the game from an insider is commendable, a step in the right direction.easy for JL to say this when he gets 10 top 5s per year.
It's like this with everything. Academics calling for change are really, if ever, actually affected.
Huh? It seems to make him more credible, no? If he were a panicky 5th year AP, frantically trying to get the top 5 he needed for tenure, we might suspect his call for change was just a personal lament in disguise. But if anything, this call is against his own interests because if top 5's lose relative value, so does his publication record.
There are cases where your point seems valid. Like the senior prof advocating for higher tenure standard he would not have met. But I think you are off base if that is intended to be a criticism.
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I am a nobody, just one top 5, but hold the opposite belief than List. The market is extremely competitive, there are too many good people compared to the number of open positions. Until that problem is rectified, devaluing the top 5s could make things worse. Having something so valuable that very few could hope to achieve creates an easy metric that prevents some level of corruption in hiring committees and tenure committees. Think of how muddled the definition of a “top field” is on this forum. Very easy for a committee to say a candidate with two ReStats is equal to a candidate with two JEBOs for whatever corrupt reason they wish to.
To everyone who is going to respond with “well committees should read the papers” they can’t or won’t so I don’t think it’s a realistic idea.
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I am a nobody, just one top 5, but hold the opposite belief than List. The market is extremely competitive, there are too many good people compared to the number of open positions. Until that problem is rectified, devaluing the top 5s could make things worse. Having something so valuable that very few could hope to achieve creates an easy metric that prevents some level of corruption in hiring committees and tenure committees. Think of how muddled the definition of a “top field” is on this forum. Very easy for a committee to say a candidate with two ReStats is equal to a candidate with two JEBOs for whatever corrupt reason they wish to.
To everyone who is going to respond with “well committees should read the papers” they can’t or won’t so I don’t think it’s a realistic idea.I would argue that the problem you describe is also a function of top-5 supremacy. One major factor that opens the door to ReStat=JEBO is that both are not top 5's, and in a lot of cases that is the one thing that matters.
If "top 5" tops becoming a magic word, that could actually open the door for more distinctions between non-top 5 journals. We could have rules of thumbs like 1 AER=2 ReStat=4 JEBO (I am just picking these numbers as an example, don't at me) which establish a clear hierarchy. ReStat=JEBO is what you get when you have 1 AER> any number of ReStat and 1 AER > Any number of JEBO.
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C6A7 I agree largely that removal of the top 5 supremacy “could” open the door to better distinctions between top field journals. However, in my personal experience I see a lot of corrupt departments purposely avoiding backing themselves into corners regarding 1 ReStat = 2 JEBO.
Further, getting a position now at a PhD granting department is so difficult having a single top 5 is the only way to distinguish yourself from the pack. It’s cruel that such a metric matters so much, but I say we are at the point where the availability of such positions is pretty close to the number of top 5s that juniors get. There is little else that would so clearly and openly hold departments or deans accountable to nefarious hiring and tenure decisions than counting the number of top 5s.
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C6A7 I agree largely that removal of the top 5 supremacy “could” open the door to better distinctions between top field journals. However, in my personal experience I see a lot of corrupt departments purposely avoiding backing themselves into corners regarding 1 ReStat = 2 JEBO.
Further, getting a position now at a PhD granting department is so difficult having a single top 5 is the only way to distinguish yourself from the pack. It’s cruel that such a metric matters so much, but I say we are at the point where the availability of such positions is pretty close to the number of top 5s that juniors get. There is little else that would so clearly and openly hold departments or deans accountable to nefarious hiring and tenure decisions than counting the number of top 5s.Firstly, the corruption in hiring pales in comparison to the levels of corruption and cronyism created by the top 5, where editors give easy pubs to their friends and firmer advisees, therefore endowing them with a multi-million dollar career. That in addition to the documented prejudice of referees against unknown authors when reviewing at top 5. You must recognize a system that promotes research as a function of anything other than it's quality or the importance of its contribution as a massive distortion.
Secondly, if we got rid of the top 5 signal then people would have to actually read papers, heaven forbid, to work out how good they are. My experience from reading very many papers is that the quality distribution of the top 5 and top field overlap substantially. I would guess that papers at the 30th percentile in a typical top field are uniformly better than the 70th percentile at top 5. Perhaps the overlap is even bigger.
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+1
C6A7 I agree largely that removal of the top 5 supremacy “could” open the door to better distinctions between top field journals. However, in my personal experience I see a lot of corrupt departments purposely avoiding backing themselves into corners regarding 1 ReStat = 2 JEBO.
Further, getting a position now at a PhD granting department is so difficult having a single top 5 is the only way to distinguish yourself from the pack. It’s cruel that such a metric matters so much, but I say we are at the point where the availability of such positions is pretty close to the number of top 5s that juniors get. There is little else that would so clearly and openly hold departments or deans accountable to nefarious hiring and tenure decisions than counting the number of top 5s.Firstly, the corruption in hiring pales in comparison to the levels of corruption and cronyism created by the top 5, where editors give easy pubs to their friends and firmer advisees, therefore endowing them with a multi-million dollar career. That in addition to the documented prejudice of referees against unknown authors when reviewing at top 5. You must recognize a system that promotes research as a function of anything other than it's quality or the importance of its contribution as a massive distortion.
Secondly, if we got rid of the top 5 signal then people would have to actually read papers, heaven forbid, to work out how good they are. My experience from reading very many papers is that the quality distribution of the top 5 and top field overlap substantially. I would guess that papers at the 30th percentile in a typical top field are uniformly better than the 70th percentile at top 5. Perhaps the overlap is even bigger. -
C6A7 I agree largely that removal of the top 5 supremacy “could” open the door to better distinctions between top field journals. However, in my personal experience I see a lot of corrupt departments purposely avoiding backing themselves into corners regarding 1 ReStat = 2 JEBO.
Further, getting a position now at a PhD granting department is so difficult having a single top 5 is the only way to distinguish yourself from the pack. It’s cruel that such a metric matters so much, but I say we are at the point where the availability of such positions is pretty close to the number of top 5s that juniors get. There is little else that would so clearly and openly hold departments or deans accountable to nefarious hiring and tenure decisions than counting the number of top 5s.Firstly, the corruption in hiring pales in comparison to the levels of corruption and cronyism created by the top 5, where editors give easy pubs to their friends and firmer advisees, therefore endowing them with a multi-million dollar career. That in addition to the documented prejudice of referees against unknown authors when reviewing at top 5. You must recognize a system that promotes research as a function of anything other than it's quality or the importance of its contribution as a massive distortion.
Secondly, if we got rid of the top 5 signal then people would have to actually read papers, heaven forbid, to work out how good they are. My experience from reading very many papers is that the quality distribution of the top 5 and top field overlap substantially. I would guess that papers at the 30th percentile in a typical top field are uniformly better than the 70th percentile at top 5. Perhaps the overlap is even bigger.I strongly disagree on the idea that the corruption in top 5s is substantially worse than corruption at other journals. In fact, knowing some people who edit top field journals I suspect corruption at that level of journal is worse. Further, isn’t there empirical research which shows that the favoritism really only shows up empirically in the QJE, Chicago seems to have a higher bar at the JPE for their own (which is on brand for them). So I guess we disagree to some extent on how much a top 5 pub signals quality.
I already said earlier in the post you quote that I don’t believe hiring or tenure committees will ever do a good job reading papers. Putting an emphasis on that type of thing will instead open the door to nefarious actions by those committees. For me, mistreatment by my senior
colleagues ended the day I had a top 5 R&R as a Junior. They knew I could leave (and I eventually did) and didn’t need to put up with their crap. Before that, my R&Rs at top field journals, high teaching evals, and impeccable attendance at department events did very little to help me. Once I had that rare signal of quality though, that was transparent to the academic market, my life improved dramatically.