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  5. Do Economists Swing for the Fences after Tenure?

Journal of Economic Perspectives

ISSN 0895-3309 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7965 (Online)

Do Economists Swing for the Fences after Tenure?

  • Jonathan Brogaard
  • Joseph Engelberg
  • Edward Van Wesep
Journal of Economic Perspectives
vol. 32, no. 1, Winter 2018
(pp. 179–94)
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Abstract

Using a sample of all academics who pass through top 50 economics and finance departments from 1996 through 2014, we study whether the granting of tenure leads faculty to pursue riskier ideas. We use the extreme tails of ex-post citations as our measure of risk and find that both the number of publications and the portion consisting of "home runs" peak at tenure and fall steadily for a decade thereafter. Similar patterns hold for faculty at elite (top 10) institutions and for faculty who take differing time to tenure. We find the opposite pattern among poorly cited publications: their numbers rise post-tenure.

Citation

Brogaard, Jonathan, Joseph Engelberg, and Edward Van Wesep. 2018. "Do Economists Swing for the Fences after Tenure?" Journal of Economic Perspectives, 32 (1): 179–94. DOI: 10.1257/jep.32.1.179

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • A11 Role of Economics; Role of Economists; Market for Economists
  • A20 Economic Education and Teaching of Economics: General
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