Publication: The evolution of the scientific productivity of highly productive economist
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2012-10
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Abstract
This paper studies the evolution of research productivity of a sample of economists working in
the best 81 departments in the world in 2007. The main novelty is that, in so far as a productivity
distribution can be identified with an income distribution, we measure productivity mobility in a dynamic
context using an indicator inspired in an income mobility index suggested by Fields (2010) for a two-period
world. Productivity is measured in terms of the number of publications in each of four classes, weighted
according to a rather elitist scheme. We study the evolution of average productivity, productivity inequality,
the extent of rank reversals, and productivity mobility for seven cohorts, as well as the population as a
whole. We offer new evidence confirming previous results about the heterogeneity of the evolution of
productivity for top and other researchers. However, the major result is that –contrary to what was
expected– for our sample of very highly productive scholars the effect of rank reversals between the two
periods on overall productivity mobility offsets the effect of an increase in productivity inequality from the
first to the second period in the youngest five out of seven cohorts
Description
This is the third version of a paper with the same title published in this series in
June 2012
Keywords
Research productivity, Income mobility, Productivity mobility, Structural and exchange mobility, Inequality decomposition