Evidence of Competition in Research Activity among Economic Department using Spatial Econometric Techniques

Despite the prevalence of both competitive forces and patterns of collaboration within academic communities, studies on research productivity generally treat universities as independent entities. By exploring the research productivity of all academic economists employed at 81 universities and 17 economic research institutes in Austria, Germany, and German-speaking Switzerland, this study determines whether a research unit’s productivity depends on that of neighboring research units. The significant negative relationship that is found implies competition for priority of discovery among individual researchers, as well as the universities and research institutes that employ them. In addition, the empirical results support the hypotheses that collaboration and the existence of economies of scale increase research productivity.Research productivity, Competition, Collaboration, Negative spatial autocorrelation, Geo-referenced point data

Competition in research activity among economic departments: Evidence by negative spatial autocorrelation

Despite the prevalence of both competitive forces and patterns of collaboration within academic communities, studies on research productivity generally treat universities as independent entities. By exploring the research productivity of all academic economists employed at 81 universities and 17 economic research institutes in Austria, Germany, and German-speaking Switzerland, this study finds that a research unit’s productivity negatively depends on that of neighboring research units weighted by inverse distances. This significant and exemplary robust negative relationship is compatible with the notion of competition for priority of discovery among individual researchers and the universities that employ them, and with the notion that the willingness to relocate decreases with distance. In addition, the empirical results support the hypotheses that collaboration and the existence of economies of scale increase research productivity

Specifying Social Weight Matrices of Researcher Networks : The Case of Academic Economists

This paper shows how collaboration and citation networks can be used to specify social weight matrices for a community of researchers. I use two competing theories of social influence on individual behavior, namely communication and comparison. I argue that in research networks collaboration captures communication, while citation captures comparison. I further argue that the comparison principle is likely to be the main social driver of individual research productivity and suggest a benchmark social weight matrix based on this principle. I test the benchmark matrix against several alternatives using a Bayesian model comparison procedure and conclude that the benchmark matrix outperforms alternative specifications. This result lends support to socio-economic theories underling the benchmark specification of the social weight matrix.publishe

The Ultimate Coasian Commitment: Estimating and Explaining Artist-Specific Death Effects

To extract part of their monopoly rent, Coase (1972) famously claimed that durable goods monopolists require some institutional device that allows them to restrict their output stream in a credible manner. We empirically test this proposition by applying it to the production of visual art. The ultimate commitment device in artistic production is the artist’s death. As living artists cannot commit to a pattern of restrained production, the prices of artwork increase when the artist dies. We identify with the help of a toy model the drivers of this so-called death effect and estimate individual death effects of a sample of famous visual artists who died between 1985 and 2011. Using data from art auctions that took place in a narrow bandwidth around the artists’ death, we apply several variations of the classical regression discontinuity design. The heterogeneity in death effects across artists turns out to be substantial. Up to 40% of the variation can be explained by age and reputation at death.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Evidence of Returns to Education Among Roma in Central and Eastern Europe and Their Policy Implications

In this paper we analyze specific educational issues faced by Roma households using data from the UNDP/ILO survey conducted in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia in 2001. Roma situation is characterized by poverty, low educational achievements, and consequently limited employment opportunities. We believe that the core of this trap is insufficient education, nonpreparedness for entry into the labormarket of amarket economy. This is demonstrated by the existence of vital returns to education estimated for Roma households throughout the region. The patterns are similar over the whole region and hence the need for a systematic and common education policy of Roma is both necessary and beneficial.publishe

Multinomial Logit Models for the Austrian Labor Market

In this paper we analyze the selection of industry branches by employees in the Austrian labor market. For this purpose we use the standard logit model and the heteroscedastic extreme value model. We show that the likelihood ratio test rejects the multinomial logit model in favor of the heteroscedastic specification. Consequently, we concentrate on estimation results of the heteroscedastic extreme value model. In our investigation we use 1997 social security records provided by the Hauptverband der Sozialversicherungen.publishe

Evidence of Competition in Research Activity among Economic Department using Spatial Econometric Techniques

Despite the prevalence of both competitive forces and patterns of collaboration within academic communities, studies on research productivity generally treat universities as independent entities. By exploring the research productivity of all academic economists employed at 81 universities and 17 economic research institutes in Austria, Germany, and German-speaking Switzerland, this study determines whether a research unit’s productivity depends on that of neighboring research units. The significant negative relationship that is found implies competition for priority of discovery among individual researchers, as well as the universities and research institutes that employ them. In addition, the empirical results support the hypotheses that collaboration and the existence of economies of scale increase research productivity