The effect of refereed articles on salary, promotion and labor mobility: The case of Japanese economists

Abstract

By using a data set of academic economists from Japanese universities, we estimated the effect of refereed articles on salary, promotion and labor mobility. Results show no effect of refereed articles on salary and on promotion. However, there is a statistically significant effect of refereed articles on labor mobility, though the magnitude of the effect is rather small. Publishing one additional refereed article increases the probability that an academic has worked in exactly two universities by 0.4%. In addition, publishing one additional refereed article in the US or Europe increases the probability that an academic has worked in exactly two universities by 1%. Refereed articles published in Japan have no statistically significant impact on the probability of working in more universities. We conclude that publishing refereed articles does not reward Japanese economists by a direct increase in salary and accelerated promotion. Our results are thus consistent with the beliefs within Japanese academia that publications do not affect salary or promotion.Academic salaries, academic promotion, academic productivity, academic labor mobility, academic economists