In this paper, I construct a novel data set from individual curriculum vitae of economists at the top 100 US departments to study gender differences in the drivers of scholarly performance. Using a Shapley decomposition procedure to estimate the contribution of each driver in explaining the variation in mean and inequality of research performance, I find that for women, current placement is a more important driver of performance and inequality in performance compared to men. For men, co-authorship is the most important driver. Overall, my results suggest that networks are the key driver of performance and of inequality in performance.
BabcockL.RecaldeM.VesterlundL.WeingartL. (2017). Gender differences in accepting and receiving requests for tasks with low promotability. American Economic Review, 107(3), 714–747. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20141734
2.
BayerA.RouseC. (2016). Diversity in the economics profession: A New attack on an old problem. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 30(4), 221–242. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.30.4.221
3.
BlackabyD.BoothA.FrankJ. (2005). Outside offers and the gender pay gap: Empirical evidence from the UK academic labour market. Economic Journal, 115(501), F81–F107. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0013-0133.2005.00973.x
4.
BlauF. D.CurrieJ. M.CrosonR. T.GintherD. K. (2010). Can mentoring help female assistant Professors? Interim results from a randomized trial. American Economic Review, 100(2), 348–352. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.100.2.348
5.
BoschiniA.SjögrenA. (2007). Is team formation gender neutral? Evidence from Co-authorship patterns. Journal of Labor Economics, 25(2), 325–365. https://doi.org/10.1086/510764
6.
BoustanL.LanganA. (2019). Variation in women's success across PhD programs in economics. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 33(1), 23–42. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.33.1.23
7.
BucklesK. (2019). Fixing the leaky pipeline: Strategies for making economics work for women at every stage. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 33(1), 43–60. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.33.1.43
8.
CardD.DellaVignaS. (2013). Nine facts about top journals in economics. Journal of Economic Literature, 51(1), 144–161. https://doi.org/10.1257/jel.51.1.144
9.
DuctorL.GoyalS.PrummerA. (2018). Gender and collaboration. Queen Mary University Working Paper. No. 856.
10.
EinavL.YarivL. (2006). What's in a surname? The effects of surname initials on academic success. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(1), 175–188. https://doi.org/10.1257/089533006776526085
11.
EllisonG. (2002). The slowdown of the economics publishing process. Journal of Political Economy, 110(5), 947–993. https://doi.org/10.1086/341868
12.
EllisonG. (2013). How does the market use citation data? The hirsch index in economics. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 5(3), 63–90. https://doi.org/10.1257/app.5.3.63
FreemanR.HuangW. (2015). Collaborating with people like me: Ethnic coauthorship within the United States. Journal of Labor Economics, 33(3), S289–S318.
GintherD. K. (2002). Women in the economics pipeline: How do we compare to other disciplines?CSWEP Newsletter.
17.
GoldmanM.KaplanD. M. (2018). Comparing distributions by multiple testing across quantiles or CDF values. Journal of Econometrics, 206(1), 143–166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeconom.2018.04.003
18.
GordonN.MortonT.BradenI. (1974). Faculty salaries: Is there discrimination by sex, race, and discipline?American Economic Review, 64(3), 419–427.
19.
GorodnichenkoY.PhamT.TalaveraO. (2019). Conference presentations and Academic Publishing. IZA Working Paper. No. 12573.
20.
HaleyM. (2017). On the inauspicious incentives of the scholar-level H-index: An economist's take on collusive and coercive citation. Applied Economics Letters, 24(2), 85–89. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2016.1164812
21.
HamermeshD. (2013). Six decades of top economics publishing: Who and how?Journal of Economic Literature, 51(1), 162–172. https://doi.org/10.1257/jel.51.1.162
22.
HilmerC.HilmerM. (2010). Are there gender Di_erences in the job mobility patterns of academic economists?American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, 100(2), 353–357. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.100.2.353
23.
HilmerM.RansomM.HilmerC. (2011). Fame and the fortune of academic economists: How the market rewards influential research in economics. Southern Economic Journal, 82(2), 430–452. https://doi.org/10.1002/soej.12037
24.
HirschJ. E. (2005). An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102(46), 16569–16572. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0507655102
25.
JonesB. F. (2021). The rise of research teams: Benefits and costs in economics. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 35(2), 191–216. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.35.2.191
26.
JustR. E.PopeR. D. (1978). Stochastic specification of production functions and economic implications. Journal of Econometrics, 7(1), 67–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-4076(78)90006-4
LindenlaubI.PrummerA. (2021). Network structure and performance. The Economic Journal, 131(634), 851–898. https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueaa072
29.
LundbergS.StearnsJ. (2019). Women in economics: Stalled progress. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 33(1), 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.33.1.3
30.
McDowellJ.SingellL.Jr.StaterM. (2007). Two to tango? Gender differences in the decisions to publish and coauthor. Economic Inquiry, 44(1), 153–168. https://doi.org/10.1093/ei/cbi065
31.
MixonF. G.Jr.UpadhyayaK. P. (2012). The economics Olympics: Ranking economics departments based on prizes, medals, and other awards. Southern Economic Journal, 79(1), 90–96. https://doi.org/10.4284/0038-4038-79.1.90
32.
MixonF. G.UpadhyayaK. P. (2019). Research productivity and the ranking of junior economics faculty: An appraisal of alternative metrics. Advances in Management and Applied Economics, 79(1), 90–96.
33.
ShapleyL. (1953). A value for n-person games. In KuhnH.W.TuckerA.W. (Eds.), Contributions to the theory of games (Vol. 2). Princeton University Press.
ShorrocksA. (2013). Decomposition procedures for distributional analysis: A unified framework based on the Shapley value. Journal of Economic Inequality, 11(1), 99–126. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10888-011-9214-z
36.
WuchtyS.JonesB. F.UzziB. (2007). The increasing dominance of teams in production of knowledge. Science, 316(5827), 1036–1039. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1136099
