Publish and Flourish? a New Study Examines Scholarly Outputs and Reputations

You know that professor in your department who cranks out 20 papers a year and whose c.v. is the size of a phone book? Have you ever wondered whether that kind of productivity actually builds an academic career? It depends on what kind of career you want to build, according to a new paper by two economists. Daniel S. Hamermesh of the University of Texas at Austin and Gerard A. Pfann of Maastricht University, in the Netherlands, examined the careers of 1,339 full professors who teach in 88 highly ranked economics departments in the United States. They found that — all else equal — publishing a high volume of papers does little to improve one’s reputation among one’s peers, or to improve one’s odds of winning a major scholarly award. But it does appear to improve a scholar’s odds of being hired by a new university, or of landing a higher salary. So if that’s your game, by all means, publish away. The paper was discussed on Monday at Freakonomics and The TaxProf Blog.