Scott Kominers writes "Any chance you could blogvertise this internship?":
"a16z crypto summer internship, with substantial
opportunities for both market design research and real-world application 😄
"Details here: https://a16z.com/about/jobs/?gh_jid=6242445003
"My/Tim's tweets: https://twitter.com/skominers/status/1853462237752770627?t=Y6vlRtLVQ1VsWUNiHvnIDA&s=19
"Thanks, QED,
SDK"
Here's a new working paper on SSRN:
Social Media and Job Market Success: A Field Experiment on Twitter, by Jingyi Qiu, Yan Chen, Alain Cohn, and Alvin E. Roth, May 20, 2024
"Abstract: We conducted a field experiment on Twitter to examine the impact of social media promotion on job market outcomes in economics. Half of the 519 job market papers tweeted from our research account were randomly assigned to be quote-tweeted by prominent economists. Papers assigned to be quote-tweeted received 442% more views and 303% more likes. Moreover, candidates in the treatment group received one additional flyout, with women receiving 0.9 more job offers. These findings suggest that social media promotion can improve the visibility and success of job market candidates, especially for underrepresented groups in economics such as women."
I gather that our paper has gone somewhat viral on twitter, with discussion about whether field experiments on job markets are ethical. That's not a bad discussion to have, and of course we discussed that in the course of planning this experiment. (A similar discussion can and should be be had about any intervention in a market, not just an experiment.*)
Here is what we had to say about that in the paper.
"Despite the positive outcomes, one might question the ethics of our intervention, which randomly promotes a subset of JMPs on social media. However, we observe that senior economists naturally promote their own students and coauthors on Twitter. In comparison, we tweeted every JMP in our sample from our dedicated research account. Furthermore, while 80% of the influencers in our sample come from top 30 institutions, they quote-tweeted JMPs from a broader spectrum of academic institutions, thus allocating attention more equitably. Given that 92% of the JMCs in both the treatment and control groups accepted a job, it is unlikely that our treatment displaced those in the control group. The current focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion suggests that highlighting suitable candidates could potentially expand the number of job openings, making the job market for economists not entirely zero-sum. Lastly, the differential benefit of our treatment for women contributes to fostering a more inclusive economics profession. In summary, we argue that the knowledge gained from our experiment outweighs the potential cost."
*I've been involved in several operational (i.e. not experimental) interventions in job markets, including the job market for new Econ Ph.D.s (e.g. signaling and the scramble): see
Coles, Peter, John H. Cawley, Phillip B. Levine, Muriel Niederle, Alvin E. Roth, and John J. Siegfried, “The Job Market for New Economists: A Market Design Perspective,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 24,4, Fall 2010, 187-206. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.24.4.187
Here's a preliminary AEA memo on the job market.
"To: Members of the American Economic Association
From: AEA Committee on the Job Market: John Cawley (chair), Matt Gentzkow, Brooke Helppie-McFall, Al Roth, Peter Rousseau, and Wendy Stock
Date: October 26, 2023
Re: JOE job openings by sector, 2023 versus the past 4 years
This memo reports the cumulative number of unique job openings on Job Openings for Economists (JOE), by sector and week, compared to the same week in recent years.
...
"Figure 1 (on p. 3) shows the total number of job openings in 2023, compared to recent years. As of the end of week 41, there have been 2,006 jobs listed on JOE since the beginning of 2023, which is 13.2% lower than at the same time in 2022, roughly the same (-0.10% lower) as in 2021, 51.3% higher than this time in 2020 (the worst COVID year), and 13.2% lower than 2019, the last pre-COVID year.
In an effort to forestall/halt/slow unravelling in the market for new Ph.D. economists, the American Economic Association has released some guidelines regarding interviews and offers.
AEA Guidance on the 2023-24 Economics Job Market Cycle
July 27, 2023
To: Members of the American Economic Association and Economics Department Chairs
From: Peter L. Rousseau, Secretary-Treasurer
Subject: AEA Guidance on the 2023-24 Economics Job Market Cycle
AEA Guidance on the 2023-24 Economics Job Market Cycle
The AEA Executive Committee, in conjunction with its Committee on the Job Market, recognizes that it is to the benefit of the profession if the job market for economists is thick, with many employers and job candidates participating in the same stages at the same time. Moreover, the AEA's goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion are fostered by having a timeline that remains widely known and accepted, ensuring that candidates can correctly anticipate when each stage will occur. The AEA has a role to establish professional norms, which includes ensuring fair treatment of job candidates, including that they have enough time to consider job offers.
With these goals in mind, and in light of inquiries from both job candidates and employers about how to proceed, the AEA asks that departments and other employers consider the following timeline for initial interviews and “flyouts” in the upcoming job cycle (2023-24).
Timing of interview invitations
The AEA suggests that employers wait to extend interview invitations until the day after job market signals are transmitted to employers (roughly December 1).
Rationale: the AEA created the signaling mechanism to reduce the problem of asymmetric information and allow job candidates to credibly signal their interest to two employers. The AEA asks that employers wait to extend interview invitations until those signals have been transmitted, and to use that information to finalize their set of candidates to interview. This helps the job market in several ways: it reduces the problem of imperfect information, it helps ensure a thick market at each stage, and it promotes the AEA’s goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Job candidates from historically under-represented groups may lack informal networks and thus may especially rely on the signals to convey their interest. Waiting to review the signals before issuing invitations promotes a fairer, more equitable process.
We also ask that all employers indicate on EconTrack when they have extended interview invitations. This allows candidates to learn about the status of searches without visiting websites posting crowd-sourced information and potentially inappropriate other content.
Timing of interviews
Initial interviews may take place any time after the AEA signals are sent (roughly December 1). The AEA recommends that all initial interviews take place virtually (e.g. by Zoom). We suggest that interviews not take place during the AEA meeting itself (January 5-7, 2024).
Rationale: In the past, interviews were conducted in-person at the AEA/ASSA meetings. This promoted thickness of the market, because most candidates and employers were present at the meetings, but had the disadvantage of precluding both job candidates and interviewers from fully participating in AEA/ASSA sessions.
Initial job interviews went online during COVID, and feedback indicated that the benefits of virtual first-round interviews (e.g. low monetary cost, zero cost in travel time, scheduling flexibility, convenience) outweighed the limitations (e.g. less rich interaction).
We ask that interviews NOT take place during the AEA/ASSA meetings (January 5-7, 2024) in order to allow job candidates and interviewers to participate in the conference.
Timing of flyouts
Flyouts have historically happened at times appropriate for the employer, and the AEA sees no reason to suggest otherwise. We ask that all employers indicate on EconTrack when they have extended flyout invitations. Unlike with interviews, the AEA does not take a position on whether flyouts should be virtual or in-person.
Timing of offers and “exploding” offers
In order to ensure that the job market remains sufficiently synchronized and thick, and that candidates have a chance to compare offers, the AEA recommends that employers leave job offers open (i.e. do not require candidates to accept or decline) until at least January 31.
The AEA also strongly recommends that employers give candidates at least two weeks to consider their job offer. We recognize that offers made late in the job market season (e.g., March or later) may be of shorter duration. In some circumstances, employers are under heavy pressure to give less time to candidates for various reasons. If that is absolutely necessary, we recommend that employers give candidates a minimum of one week to consider the offer, and that candidates be given advance notice of this (e.g. at the flyout stage) whenever possible.
Rationale: Recently, there is concern about a rise in “exploding offers” – i.e., offers for which candidates are given too few days to sufficiently consider the offer and their alternatives. This can prevent candidates from learning about their options or comparing offers, and at the extreme can be coercive. Giving candidates two weeks (or, late in the job market season, at least one week) to consider an offer is a reasonable standard.
We also ask that all employers indicate on EconTrack when they have completed or closed their search.
Job market institutions and mechanisms
Please keep in mind the various job market institutions and mechanisms created by the AEA to improve the job market:
We encourage all employers to review and abide by Best Practices for Economists to Build a More Diverse, Inclusive, and Productive Profession, and in particular those for conducting a fair recruiting process.
Thank you for helping to ensure a transparent and equitable job market for new Ph.D. economists.
Here's a paper on the economics job market, and the influence of dissertation advisers.
Adviser Connectedness and Placement Outcomes in the Economics Job Market, by Michael E. Rose and Suraj Shekhar, forthcoming in Labour Economics
Abstract: We study the role of social networks in the academic job market for graduate students of Economics. We find that the connectedness of a student’s advisor in the coauthor network significantly improves her job market outcome. We use two identification strategies and find that a) higher Eigenvector centrality of an adviser leads to her student getting placed at a better ranked institution, and b) larger distance between an adviser and an institution decreases the probability that her students are placed there. Our study sheds light on the importance of social connections in a labour market where information frictions regarding job openings are virtually absent.
...
"Our setting, the academic job market for Economists, is special in that information frictions regarding job openings are (almost) absent due to Job Openings for Economists. Thus, our finding that social networks play a role in this market is likely because they help decrease the uncertainty about an applicant’s quality."
********
I'm reminded of the timeless joke about how rabbits eat wolves: if you don't know it, there are many versions on the internet, here (and this one comes with a bonus joke: Rabbit's Ph.D. Thesis and Lion's Watch Repair Business).
Here's a news story in Nature:
Multimillion-dollar trade in paper authorships alarms publishers. Journals have begun retracting publications with suspicious links to sites trading in author positions. by Holly Else
"Research-integrity sleuths have uncovered hundreds of online advertisements that offer the chance to buy authorship on research papers to be published in reputable journals.
"Publishers are investigating the claims, and have retracted dozens of articles over suspicions that people have paid to be named as authors, despite not participating in the research. Integrity specialists warn that the problem is growing, and say that other retractions are likely to follow.
...
"Most of the adverts are posted on social-media sites including Facebook and Telegram, as well as the websites of companies that claim to offer academic publishing services. They often include the title of the paper, the journal it will be published in, the year of publication and the position of authorship slots available for purchase. Prices range from hundreds to thousands of US dollars depending on the research area and the journal’s prestige."
*****
Here is the underlying working paper, on arxiv, to which the story refers:
Publication and collaboration anomalies in academic papers originating from a paper mill: evidence from a Russia-based paper mill by Anna Abalkina
This study attempts to detect papers originating from the Russia-based paper mill International publisher LLC. A total of 1009 offers published during 2019-2021 on the this http URL website were analysed. The study allowed us to identify at least 434 papers that are potentially linked to the paper mill including one preprint, a duplication paper and 15 republications of papers erroneously published in hijacked journals. Evidence of suspicious provenance from the paper mill is provided: matches in title, number of coauthorship slots, year of publication, country of the journal, country of a coauthorship slot and similarities of abstracts. These problematic papers are coauthored by scholars associated with at least 39 countries and submitted both to predatory and reputable journals. This study also demonstrates collaboration anomalies and the phenomenon of suspicious collaboration in questionable papers and examines the predictors of the Russia-based paper mill. The value of coauthorship slots offered by International Publisher LLC in 2019-2021 is estimated at $6.5 million. Since the study analysed a particular paper mill, it is likely that the number of papers with forged authorship is much higher.
22 candidates for the 2022-23 Economics Job Market, from B to Z.
Stanford, Department of Economics Job Market Candidates
Available November 2022 for positions in Summer/Fall 2023
Placement Officers: Pete Klenow 650-725-2620 klenow@stanford.edu and Liran Einav 650-723-3704 leinav@stanford.edu
Trevor Bakker
Aniket Baksy
Lukas Bolte
Yue Cao
Daniele Caratelli
Alex Chan
Fulya Ersoy
Tony Fan
Robin Han
Brian Higgins
Tingyan Jia
Matteo Leombroni
Gina Li
Negar Matoorian Pour
Agathe Pernoud
Beatriz Pousada
Maxwell Rong
Rachel Schuh
Martin Souchier
Reka Zempleni
Adam Zhang
Sally Zhang
Kim Krawiec, a law professor who is among the most penetrating analysts of controversial markets and market practices, emails me about unraveling in the market for new law professors:
"prior to Covid, the AALS (American Association of Law Schools) ran a hiring process with a central meeting in Washington DC and nearly every law professor was hired through this process. During Covid, this of course stopped and has now been dropped (I think) permanently, so now schools are sort of making up their own schedules. Some schools are starting early and making exploding offers before other schools have even begun the process. The idea of exploding offers is not new — it happened before. Though some (mostly higher ranked schools) considered it bad form, other schools argued that they had to do it or would wind up hiring no one year after year as favored candidates accepted other jobs near the end of the season. But the physical meeting and control over the timing by the AALS at least posed a basic schedule. That now appears to be gone and people (both candidates and hiring committees) are up in arms. ... My guess (completely speculating) is that the interests of higher ranked and lower ranked schools are not aligned on this and that makes it harder to find a new equilibrium, but I don’t know."
*******
Law already 'enjoys' a number of unraveled markets, for law clerks, for associates (and summer associates) in law firms, and for articles in law reviews. So I have to admit the prospects for preventing wholesale unraveling of the law professor market looks bleak, unless law schools can start to think outside of the box, perhaps e.g. by preparing to give offers to students who have already accepted exploding offers, if necessary to start in the following academic year...
Maybe in that way the academic law community can start to come to some agreement on some time, midway between early and late, in which offers should be made and during which they should be left open.
A news article in Nature summarizes two research articles into the makeup of the American professoriate. Professors tend to have gotten their PhDs from prestigious American universities, and to have grown up in families with college educated parents, some with advanced degrees.
Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities by Anna Nowogrodzki
"One in eight US-trained tenure-track faculty members got their PhDs from just five elite universities: the University of California, Berkeley; Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; Stanford University in California; and the University of Wisconsin–Madison."
...
"This picture of elitism is bolstered by a study published last month in Nature Human Behaviour2, showing that almost 25% of faculty members in the United States have at least one parent with a PhD (in the general population, less than 1% of people have a parent with a PhD).
...
"Depending on the field, only 5–23% of faculty members worked at an institution more prestigious than the one at which they earned their PhD, according to the analysis. Fields with the least ‘upward mobility’ included classics and economics, whereas those with the most included animal science and pharmacology."
Sources:
Quantifying hierarchy and dynamics in US faculty hiring and retention by K. Hunter Wapman, Sam Zhang, Aaron Clauset & Daniel B. Larremore Nature (2022)
Socioeconomic roots of academic faculty by Allison C. Morgan, Nicholas LaBerge, Daniel B. Larremore, Mirta Galesic, Jennie E. Brand & Aaron Clauset ,Nature Human Behaviour (2022)
Here's an email broadcast by the American Economic Association, aimed to promote market thickness by avoiding unraveling and dealing with congestion:
To: Members of the American Economic Association
From: Peter L. Rousseau, Secretary-Treasurer
Subject: AEA Guidance on Timeline for 2022-23 Economics Job Cycle
The AEA Executive Committee, in conjunction with its Committee on the Job Market,
recognizes that it is to the benefit of the profession if the job market for
economists is thick, with many employers and job candidates participating in
the same stages at the same time. Moreover, the AEA's goals of diversity,
equity, and inclusion are fostered by having a timeline that remains widely
known and accepted, ensuring that candidates can correctly anticipate when each
stage will occur. With these goals in mind, and in light of inquiries from both
students and departments about how to proceed, the AEA asks that departments
and other employers consider the following timeline for initial interviews and
“flyouts” in the upcoming job cycle (2022-23).
Interview invitations
The AEA suggests that employers wait to extend interview invitations until
the day after job market signals are transmitted to employers.
Rationale: the AEA created the signaling mechanism to reduce the problem of
asymmetric information and allow job candidates to credibly signal their
interest to two employers. The AEA asks that employers wait to extend interview
invitations until those signals have been transmitted, and to use that information
to finalize their set of candidates to interview. This helps the job market in
several ways: it reduces the problem of imperfect information, it helps ensure
a thick market at each stage, and it promotes the AEA’s goals of diversity,
equity, and inclusion. Job candidates from historically under-represented
groups may lack informal networks and thus may especially rely on the signals
to convey their interest. Waiting to review the signals before issuing
invitations promotes a fairer, more equitable process.
We also ask that all employers indicate on EconTrack when they have extended
interview invitations; this allows candidates to learn about the status of
searches without visiting websites posting crowd-sourced information and
potentially inappropriate other content.
Interviews
The AEA recommends that employers conduct initial interviews starting on Monday,
January 2, 2023, and strongly recommends that all interviews take
place virtually (e.g. by Zoom). We suggest that interviews not take place
during the AEA meeting itself (January 6-8, 2023).
Rationale: In the past, interviews were conducted in person at the AEA/ASSA
meetings. This promoted thickness of the market, because most candidates
and employers were present at the in-person meetings, but had the disadvantage
of precluding both job candidates and interviewers from fully participating in
AEA/ASSA sessions.
Interviews should now be conducted virtually to prevent risk of exposure to
COVID, and to promote equity among the candidates. Informal feedback to the AEA
committee on the job market indicated that the benefits of virtual first-round
interviews (e.g. low monetary cost, zero cost in travel time, convenience)
outweighed the limitations (e.g. less rich interaction).
We recommend that employers wait until January 2 to interview candidates
because job candidates may have teaching or TA responsibilities in December. Moreover,
having a clear start date for interviews will help candidates to have accurate
expectations of the timing of the stages of the market. An unraveling of the
market works against the AEA’s goal of having a thick market at each stage and
also works against candidates having uniform expectations of the timing of each
stage of the market.
We ask that interviews NOT take place during the AEA/ASSA meetings (January
6-8, 2023) in order to allow job candidates and interviewers to participate in
the conference.
Flyouts and offers
Flyouts and offers have historically happened at times appropriate for the
employer, and the AEA sees no reason to suggest otherwise. We ask that
all employers indicate on EconTrack
when they have extended flyout invitations and closed their searches. Unlike
with interviews, the AEA does not take a position on whether flyouts should be
virtual or in-person.
Job market institutions and mechanisms
Please keep in mind the various job market institutions and mechanisms
created by the AEA to improve the job market:
· The
JOE Network includes a database of job openings for economists.
o
Employers may sign up here: https://www.aeaweb.org/joe/employer.
o
Job candidates may search the database here: https://www.aeaweb.org/joe/listings.
o
The JOE Network has an electronic clearinghouse
for job candidates to submit job applications. Job candidates may register
here: https://www.aeaweb.org/joe/candidate.
· The
AEA Committee on the Job Market releases data and guidance on the job market
here: https://www.aeaweb.org/joe/communications.
· EconTrack:
a board on which employers can indicate when they have extended interview and
flyout invitations, and closed their search: https://www.aeaweb.org/econtrack.
Thank you for helping to ensure a transparent and equitable job market for new
Ph.D. economists.
It's not always easy to investigate repugnant things, let alone crimes. Old Dominion University has parted ways with an assistant professor, Allyn Walker, who uses the pronoun "they." They studied people who are sexually attracted to children, but don't act on their attraction, i.e. who aren't child molesters. Walker's book on the subject drew unwanted attention and accusations that it promoted child molesting.
The Chronicle of Higher Ed has the story:
An Unacceptable Idea. A university says it supports free inquiry. So why does this pedophilia researcher no longer work there? By Emma Pettit
"Walker’s book, A Long, Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity, examines adults who are sexually attracted to children but say they refrain from acting on that attraction. The scholar avoids the term “pedophiles,” even though its literal meaning describes only desire, not behavior, in part because it has come to be synonymous in the public mind with “child molester.”
...
“Allow me to be clear: This book does not promote sexual contact between adults and minors,” Walker writes in the introduction. Knowing some readers might see it that way, though, Walker prepared. Before the book’s publication in June 2021, the scholar, then an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion University, wrote a memo for university leaders with talking points to respond to that misconception, should objections to the research arise.
...
"When Tucker Carlson covered the story, he referred to Walker as “a self-described ‘nonbinary assistant professor,’” adding, “we have no idea what that means, by the way, but that’s what this person calls him or herself.” Beside Carlson was a graphic that announced: “The Left’s Depraved New Low.”
"Students at Old Dominion also objected. They mounted a protest and urged the university to fire Walker.
...
"Walker was placed on indefinite administrative leave.
...
"Walker’s leave notice, obtained by The Chronicle, said that the action was being taken “due to concerns over your safety and that of the campus, and to address the immediate effects of the reaction to your research and book which has impacted the University’s mission of teaching and learning.”
...
“Research into sensitive topics and the expression of new or controversial views lie at the heart of academic research. … At the same time,” Hemphill wrote, “this freedom carries with it the obligation to speak and write with care and precision, particularly on a subject that has caused pain in so many lives.”
...
"on November 24, Walker and the university jointly announced that the assistant professor had “decided to step down.”
...
"Though the wave of reactions was mighty, leaders at Old Dominion could have done more “to resist the power of the misreading of Dr. Walker’s work” and to protect the scholar’s reputation in the institution’s messaging, the university’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors wrote in an open letter. Old Dominion’s response “essentially indicated that if a conflict emerges between academic freedom and hateful political groups that threaten violence, then the politics of hate will win,” Kent Sandstrom, a professor in Walker’s department and a former dean of the college, said in an email. “I can’t think of a more troubling precedent.”
...
"Walker’s Old Dominion contract ends this month. For the time being, at least, they have found an academic home. They’ll be a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins’s Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse."
There is an increasing presence of labor unions at American universities, which may well bring big changes to those universities. Here is an article from the Chronicle of Higher Ed suggesting that it may also bring big changes to some labor unions.
A New Force in American Labor: Academe--One in five members of the United Automobile Workers is in higher education.By Barry Eidlin, NOVEMBER 29, 2021
"But why would a philosophy major at UC Berkeley join a campaign to change how an auto-worker union chooses its leadership? As a tutor in the University of California system, Huang is a member of UAW Local 2865 — along with other academic workers like graduate-student instructors and “readers,” students hired to grade assignments. With 19,000 members, Local 2865 is now the second-largest local in the entire union.
"Organizing those members has been challenging. “It’s hard enough to get them to recognize themselves as workers,” explained Keith Brower Brown, a Ph.D. candidate in the UC Berkeley geography department. “It’s a whole other step to get them to embrace that they’re a part of this international union, and they have a stake in changing the leadership of the union.” To help colleagues take that step, Cyn Huang tries to connect the referendum to familiar issues: “You explain how the ability to elect top leadership could lead to better contracts, greater accountability, new organizing. It makes sense to people. Once they hear that, it’s pretty intuitive.”
"In recent decades, academic workers like Huang and Brown have become an increasingly large part of the UAW. This group — which includes undergraduate tutors, graduate-student teachers and researchers, postdoctoral fellows, and adjunct instructors — now constitutes roughly one-fifth of the UAW’s active membership."
************
The UAW has organized student workers at Harvard, and just reached an agreement on a new contract. Some details are here:
Here's a 'career column' from Nature, with advice that I think academic advisors should keep in mind, especially in view of the growing number of attractive non-academic options for some kinds of Ph.D.s
Beware survivorship bias in advice on science careers. For objective careers advice, talk to those who left science as well as those who stayed. by Dave Hemprich-Bennett , Dani Rabaiotti & Emma Kennedy
"A major flaw in much scientific and academic career advice is survivorship bias. This is a common logical error, involving drawing conclusions based on those who have ‘survived’ a process — and are thus more visible than those who did not. In the case of science careers advice, the bias arises because those who manage to stick to their chosen career path are there to advise the next generation of researchers on how to stay in their field.
...
"
Peer review is a big part of the design of modern academic publishing in scholarly journals. It wasn't always that way, and the current peer review system is pretty modern. Here's an account of its development in the discipline of Sociology, since the 1950's (which is similar to what we see in Economics, except that it appears Sociology relies substantially more on double-blind reviews).
Merriman, B. Peer Review as an Evolving Response to Organizational Constraint: Evidence from Sociology Journals, 1952–2018. The American Sociologist 52, 341–366 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-020-09473-x
"Abstract: Double-blind peer review is a central feature of the editorial model of most journals in sociology and neighboring social scientific fields, yet there is little history of how and when its main features developed. Drawing from nearly 70 years of annual reports of the editors of American Sociological Association journals, this article describes the historical emergence of major elements of editorial peer review. These reports and associated descriptive statistics are used to show that blind review, ad hoc review, the formal requirement of exclusive submission, routine use of the revise and resubmit decision, and common use of desk rejection developed separately over a period of decades. The article then argues that the ongoing evolution of the review model has not been driven by intellectual considerations. Rather, the evolution of peer review is best understood as the product of continuous efforts to steward editors’ scarce attention while preserving an open submission policy that favors authors’ interests."
From the introduction:
"In the main, editors are faculty members who operate a journal concurrently with ordinary work responsibilities; some receive modest, fixed remuneration, but editors have no strong financial interest in the journals they edit, and commonly serve for fixed or periodically renewed terms. (For most current journals, the economic interest rests primarily with one of a handful of large commercial publishers.) Journals do not restrict submissions by status criteria such as institutional affiliation or academic rank, and submission ordinarily carries little or no money cost, even at journals where authors assume a large part of the eventual expense of publication. Authors are expected to submit a given work exclusively to a single journal. After initial screening, submissions to a typical journal undergo double-blind review, in which the identities of authors and reviewers are not known to one another. Most evaluations of submitted manuscripts are produced by scholars who are not part of the appointed editorial staff of the journal. Work that is published has ordinarily undergone at least one formal round of revision and resubmission in response to the substance of external evaluations.
...
"At ASA journals, blind review, external review, exclusive submission, the formal revise and resubmit decision, and a developmental (rather than advisory) model of assessment developed in succession over a period of more than 30 years. In the twenty-first Century, persistent difficulties in obtaining timely reviews prompted a rapid, order of magnitude increase in frequency of rejections without review, commonly called desk rejections. Blind review was the only feature of the present model adopted at an ASA journal with an explicitly stated, unambiguously intellectual aim. This article argues that the other features of the current peer review model emerged as improvised efforts to balance two competing organizational imperatives: editors must steward scarce time and attention, but have also sought to render reasonably timely decisions without a priori exclusion of large numbers of prospective authors or capricious rejection of submissions. This pattern in journal operations in many ways reflects larger structural changes in sociology: rapid expansion of the field in the mid-to-late twentieth Century was succeeded by increasing competition in the academic labor market and heightened publishing expectations for tenure and promotion."
A snippet from the body of the paper:
"Ad hoc review, in which manuscripts are referred to scholars not formally affiliated with the journal organization, did not become an integral feature of the ordinary reviewing process until the early 1970s. Before then, virtually all evaluations were produced by members of journal editorial boards. Exclusive submission to a single journal also did not become a rule until the 1970s, and there is suggestive evidence that simultaneous submission to multiple journals may have been somewhat common until that time.
"At first, reviewing was plainly intended to aid to the work of the editor; the occasional value of reviews to authors was taken as an incidental benefit. The evolution of a developmental model of review oriented toward the author was gradual, as was the emergence of the revise and resubmit decision as a nearly unavoidable intermediate step on the path to publication."
...
And in conclusion:
"A primary constraint on editorial innovation is, of course, the professional and status structure of academic disciplines. An extensive body of research on disciplines, and on higher educational institutions more generally, has shown a powerful isomorphic tendency: such structures tend to converge on a given form of practice even if all the actors are wholly aware of its inadequacies. Further, change in such practices will, under most circumstances, be slow: individual academic advancement involves regularly submitting oneself to the judgment of the more experienced members of a discipline according to the standards those more experienced scholars impose. Those who may have the freshest view of an intellectual field, and perhaps a greater impulse to explore new lines of work, also face the strongest pressures to invest their time and effort conservatively in the oldest means of publicizing their work.
"Efforts to change publishing norms therefore stand a much greater chance of success if they are adopted first, or early, by actors who occupy central places in a field, or if they are given the strong, credible endorsement of such actors (Starbuck 2016: 178). Conversations about academic publishing models, especially their relative unresponsiveness to changing circumstances in the twenty-first Century, often possess a degree of fatalism. But the development of editorial peer review itself is an important reminder of how rapidly a good idea may spread."
HT: Retraction Watch
Below are some guidelines suggested by the American Economic Association for the conduct of this year's job market for new Ph.D.s
AEA Guidance on Timeline for 2021-22 Economics Job Cycle
"The AEA Executive Committee, in conjunction with its ad hoc Committee on the Job Market, recognizes that it is to the benefit of the profession if the job market for economists is thick, with many employers and job candidates participating in the same stages at the same time. Moreover, the AEA's goals of fairness, inclusion, and diversity are fostered by having a timeline that remains widely accepted, even as public health conditions necessitate a virtual ASSA meeting again this year. With these goals in mind, and in light of inquiries from both students and departments about how to proceed, the Association asks that departments and other employers consider the following timeline for initial interviews and “flyouts” in the upcoming job cycle.
Interview invitations
The AEA suggests that employers wait to extend interview invitations until at least Thursday, December 2, 2021.
Rationale: the AEA will deliver signals from job candidates to employers on December 1. We suggest that employers review those signals and incorporate them into their decision-making before extending interview invitations. Job candidates from under-represented groups may lack informal networks and thus, may especially rely on the signals to convey their interest. Waiting to review the signals before issuing invitations promotes a fairer, more equitable process.
We also ask that all employers indicate on EconTrack when they have extended interview invitations; this allows candidates to learn about the status of searches without visiting websites posting crowd-sourced information and potentially inappropriate other content.
Interviews
The AEA suggests that employers conduct initial interviews starting on Monday, January 3, 2022, and that all interviews take place virtually; i.e. either by phone or online (e.g. by Zoom). We suggest that interviews not take place during the AEA meeting itself (January 7-9, 2022).
Rationale: In the past, interviews were conducted in person at the AEA/ASSA meetings. This promoted thickness of the market, because most candidates and employers were present at the in-person meetings, but had the disadvantage of precluding both job candidates and interviewers from fully participating in AEA/ASSA sessions. Given that the 2022 AEA/ASSA meetings will be entirely virtual, we suggest that interviews NOT take place on the meeting dates to allow job candidates and interviewers to participate in the conference.
We recommend that employers wait until January 3 to interview candidates because job candidates may have teaching or TA responsibilities in December, and to ensure that candidates have accurate expectations of the timing of the stages of the market. An unraveling of the market works against the Association’s goal of having a thick market at each stage and also against candidates having uniform expectations of the market’s timing. All interviews should be conducted by phone or online to prevent risk of exposure to COVID, and to promote equity among the candidates.
Flyouts and offers
Flyouts and offers generally happen at times appropriate for the employer, and the AEA sees no reason to suggest otherwise. We ask that all employers indicate on EconTrack when they have extended flyout invitations and closed their searches.
Job market institutions and mechanisms
Please keep in mind the various job market institutions and mechanisms created by the AEA to improve the job market:
The JOE Network includes a database of job openings for economists.
Employers may sign up here: https://www.aeaweb.org/joe/employer.
Job candidates may search the database here: https://www.aeaweb.org/joe/listings.
The JOE Network has an electronic clearinghouse for job candidates to submit job applications. Job candidates may register here: https://www.aeaweb.org/joe/candidate.
The AEA ad hoc Committee on the Job Market releases data and guidance on the job market here: https://www.aeaweb.org/joe/communications.
EconTrack: a board on which employers can indicate when they have extended interview and flyout invitations, and closed their search: https://www.aeaweb.org/econtrack.
EconSpark: a moderated forum in which one can discuss topics of interest to the profession, including the job market: https://www.aeaweb.org/forum/categories.
Thank you for your attention to this initiative."
This report includes two figures in which the discipline of Economics is near one of the extremes. The regression models on gender and salaries are interesting too.
UC BERKELEY FACULTY SALARY EQUITY STUDY, ANNUAL UPDATE, 2020 OFFICE OF THE VICE PROVOST FOR THE FACULTY, DECEMBER 2020
Here's a proposal for a centralized clearinghouse for new Ph.D.s in English. It's a thought experiment, unconstrained by considerations of stability.
The Chronicle of Higher Ed
Medical Residencies Use Automatic Matching. Professorships Should, Too.--A thought experiment in improving a dismal situation. By Kim Adams
"What would a computerized match look like in faculty hiring? Let’s say that I am applying for a tenure-track assistant professor position in English. I would read job ads from universities and submit the requested application materials, just as I do now. The main difference would be timing. In order for a match to work, all the job ads would need to be posted by a given date, for example, September 1. It would work best if they were all posted in the same place, perhaps the website of the new Faculty Match Program. The application materials would likewise be due at a uniform time, let us say November 1.
...
"The algorithm would be designed to ensure a maximum distribution of candidates across openings. While the number of first round interview requests a candidate could receive would be unlimited, the number of campus visits would be limited to three. The process would prefer to provide each candidate with one campus visit before providing any candidates with a second. This would benefit both parties. A greater number of candidates would receive campus visits than in the current system. And the department conducting the search could rest assured that the candidates matched to their campus were actually interested in taking the job.
My Stanford colleague Eddie Lazear passed away last month, from pancreatic cancer. (When he moved from the University of Chicago to Stanford around 1995 he told me that he moved when he did because he was aware that the academic market for professors became thin after one's 50th birthday.)
Prominent among his many accomplishments were his studies of labor markets from the inside out, i.e. from the perspectives of workers inside firms.
His papers include
Lazear, Edward P. "Why is there mandatory retirement?." Journal of political economy 87, 6 (1979): 1261-1284.
Lazear, Edward P., and Sherwin Rosen. "Rank-order tournaments as optimum labor contracts." Journal of political Economy 89, 5 (1981): 841-864.
Lazear, Edward P. "Performance pay and productivity." American Economic Review 90, 5 (2000): 1346-1361.
He founded the Journal of Labor Economics, and its current issue, Volume 39, Number 1, January 2021, published just now, contains his most recent paper:
Why Are Some Immigrant Groups More Successful Than Others?
Abstract: "The composition of immigrants depends not only on immigrant choice but also on immigration policy, because slots are rationed. Policy determines immigrant attainment, as evidenced by immigrants from Algeria having higher educational attainment than those from Israel or Japan. Theory predicts and evidence confirms that immigrant attainment is inversely related to the number admitted from a source country and positively related to population and education levels at home. A parsimonious specification has only two variables yet explains a majority of the variation in educational attainment of US immigrant groups. The theory and predictions are bolstered by Swedish data."
Here is the memorial statement from the JOLE (with a link to a special issue in honor of Eddie's 65th birthday: IN MEMORIAM: EDWARD LAZEAR
He was an an influential policy advisor as well as an institution builder. Here's his Stanford obituary:
NOVEMBER 24, 2020: Trailblazing economist and presidential adviser Edward Lazear dies at 72
Here's a photo I took of him in December 2011 at a conference in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Rationality Center in Jerusalem.
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| Eddie Lazear (1948-2020) |
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