ftp://repec.iza.org/RePEc/Discussionpaper/dp10752.pdf
This is buried in another post quite deep so I am starting a new thread to increase visibility.
TLDR is adding lower tier pubs to a CV decreases subjective evaluations on a 0 to 10 scale. Even when CVs are directly compared so that they are displayed side by side, lower tier pubs do not add any value.
LOL just LOL at this profession.
This only matters if you're eventually trying to get to Harvard. If you're not, then after you get tenure, you should be publishing frequently and often to build up citation counts that buys you credibility for consulting and grants. Nobody besides economists know the difference between a good economics journal and a bad economics journal, and you should be thinking about how to expand your research so that it's interesting to a wide swath of academics, policymakers, etc., and not just narrow-minded economists (who by the way, are not likely to treat you fairly even if you are publishing in only good journals).
This is what my adviser used to tell me. When talking about someone's vita, he'd say "that person needs fewer pubs." Because a ton of the pubs were of low quality, and it was harming the vita. Think of the vita as a random variable with some distribution. You want your modal paper to be in a good outlet not a s**tty one. Which I think is the source of the perception that the vita is worse in this experiment.
Ok, here is the deal: there is a segment of universities called "four year regional comprehensives" and there are also the "non-selective LACs". These will pay you about a 70-85K starting AP salary, perhaps a bit more with a couple of year's experience. Teaching load would probably be 3-3, with 2 preps.
Their best choice person would be a person with a PhD in an empirical field from a top 35-85ish place, with a degree in hand, with a couple of years experience (an AP from a similar institution moving due to better location, family reasons, etc.), and decent teaching evals as an instructor. For these institutions, having a couple of publications at the hiring stage in places like IE, EJPE, OEB, would count a lot.
In the EJMR universe perhaps these places are unknown, in the real world there are a few thousand of them in the US.
And obviously authors of published research like the one cited in an above post do not often survey these kind of places - not good for the publication of the paper (little bit like John Cawley's advice paper, which he honestly says is meant for the top-tier, unlike Hisham Foad's narrative)
Ok, here is the deal: there is a segment of universities called "four year regional comprehensives" and there are also the "non-selective LACs". These will pay you about a 70-85K starting AP salary, perhaps a bit more with a couple of year's experience. Teaching load would probably be 3-3, with 2 preps.
Their best choice person would be a person with a PhD in an empirical field from a top 35-85ish place, with a degree in hand, with a couple of years experience (an AP from a similar institution moving due to better location, family reasons, etc.), and decent teaching evals as an instructor. For these institutions, having a couple of publications at the hiring stage in places like IE, EJPE, OEB, would count a lot.
In the EJMR universe perhaps these places are unknown, in the real world there are a few thousand of them in the US.
Yup. You just described me, my job, and my experience.
Couldn't respondents be using total pubs as signal of age or time since degree? Abstract isn't clear whether they control for this.
pp. 13-14
"There may be in all of our results, a concern that respondents may be inferring
a prediction of future productivity from the lists, and in particular that the short lists are signalling a lack of career time to publish more papers as well as an indicator of quality of contributions – and therefore an alternative explanation for our observed results. We deliberately did not give any clues or suggestions as to the career stage of the person our hypothetical CV belongs to, specifically because we did not wish to prime our subjects into evaluating the hypothetical lists based on some expected values that might be deemed appropriate for a certain career stage. So while the lack of career time might be a possible reason for our results, the results of the joint valuations, when respondents can see both lists and rate the value of the contributions of each strongly undermines this suggestion. If it were the cause for the observed ratings of the publication lists in the single valuations, it would also be the case in the joint valuations – authors with fewer publications would in joint valuations too be given a benefit of a doubt of lack of career time being the reason for their shortness of lists. But this was not our finding."
This study obviously exaggerates the negative effect of low-ranked journal publications. Some of the low-ranked journals they considered are: Journal of African Economics, Emerging Market Review, Pakistan Development Review, Eastern Economic Journal, Asian Economic Journal, Journal of Economic Methodology, Pacific Economic Bulletin, Global Economic Journal, International Journal of the Economics of Business, and South African Journal of Economics.
Those are not even low-ranked, but just unclassified.
Seems that they don't account for coauthorship at all? Without information about coauthors, when I see a QJE and a JPE (the most clubby top5) next to the Pakistan Economic Review and the Journal of African Economics, I think HRM lemon first, ie, an author who apparently has extremely well-connected coauthors (who are probably also pretty capable) but does not even hit the usual good LRM range consistently otherwise... so either a glorified RA or - different story - someone who can provide data from remote locations... of course, this leads to a discount...
(Haven't read much but: No info on career stage is given to the subjects so there might also be a tendency to think of higher average quality and a younger author in the shorter CV?)
This study obviously exaggerates the negative effect of low-ranked journal publications. Some of the low-ranked journals they considered are: Journal of African Economics, Emerging Market Review, Pakistan Development Review, Eastern Economic Journal, Asian Economic Journal, Journal of Economic Methodology, Pacific Economic Bulletin, Global Economic Journal, International Journal of the Economics of Business, and South African Journal of Economics.
Those are not even low-ranked, but just unclassified.
That list of publications makes, in two responder's opinion, the individual's professional reputation "the worst possible".
On the other hand, three people think that this list
1. Journal of Econometrics
2. Quarterly Journal of Economics
3. Economic Journal
4. Journal of Labor Economics
5. Journal of International Economics
6. Journal of Public Economics
7. Review of Economics and Statistics
8. Journal of Political Economy
makes "the best possible CV".
We deliberately did not give any clues or suggestions as to the career stage of the person our hypothetical CV belongs to, specifically because we did not wish to prime our subjects into evaluating the hypothetical lists based on some expected values that might be deemed appropriate for a certain career stage.
And why wouldn't you wish to prime your subjects into etc. etc.? Translation: we didn't think it through beforehand, so now we have to come up with some lame excuse for not doing it right.
Seems that they don't account for coauthorship at all? Without information about coauthors, when I see a QJE and a JPE (the most clubby top5) next to the Pakistan Economic Review and the Journal of African Economics, I think HRM lemon first, ie, an author who apparently has extremely well-connected coauthors (who are probably also pretty capable) but does not even hit the usual good LRM range consistently otherwise... so either a glorified RA or - different story - someone who can provide data from remote locations... of course, this leads to a discount...
(Haven't read much but: No info on career stage is given to the subjects so there might also be a tendency to think of higher average quality and a younger author in the shorter CV?)
no objective deduction is possible from these things. its likely that a LRM/VLRM collaborates with a HRM or a senior just to get a fair shake at the top journals. but he must be a glorified RA, because of course.
bottomline : econ is a very clubby profession. there is hardly any good measure of how important your work is because unlike sciences, no one even tries to go and make something salable in the marketr out of your work. so your whole professional success or failure hinges on whether you are an insider or not.
you are an VLRM and write about the caloric intake of migrants in a country - it gets published in pacific economic review. you are a HRM and it gets published in AER. that is how things are set up. your affiliation is your destiny.