This paper investigates the determinants of tenure decisions in Germany, Austria and the German-speaking part of Switzerland for professorships in economics, business administration and related fields. Our dataset comprises candidates who were awarded tenure as well as those who were eligible but were not tenured. We show that business candidates have a higher probability of being tenured than economists. Youth, marital status and publications matter; gender and children do not. The market for first appointments in economics relies much more on publication performance than the market for business administration. Copyright 2008 The Authors. Journal Compilation Verein für Socialpolitik and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2008.

We reply to a comment by Diamantopoulos and Wagner questioning the face validity of our research productivity ranking for the field 'Marketing and Sales'. Copyright 2009 The Authors. Journal Compilation 2009 Verein für Socialpolitik and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2009.

Using data on the B.E. Journals that rank articles into four quality tiers, this paper examines the accuracy of the research evaluation process in economics. We find that submissions by authors with strong publication records and authors affiliated with highly-ranked institutions are significantly more likely to be published in higher tiers. Citation success as measured by RePEc statistics also depends heavily on the overall research records of the authors. Finally and most importantly, we measure how successful the B.E. Journals’ editors and their reviewers have been at assigning articles to quality tiers. While, on average, they are able to distinguish more influential from less influential manuscripts, we also observe many assignments that are not compatible with the belief that research quality is reflected by the number of citations.

The Handelsblatt Ökonomen-Ranking is as yet the best privately provided ranking of individual economists and entire economics departments in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. It is, however, not suited for management purposes because the employed evaluation method gives rise to dysfunctional incentives. The research productivities derived by the Handelsblatt method, moreover, turn out to be biased. The Committee for Research Monitoring of the Verein für Socialpolitik makes use of an established bibliometric method that is not afflicted with these shortcomings. We show how selected results are altered when instead of the standard method various aspects of the Handelsblatt method are applied. Copyright 2008 die Autoren Journal compilation 2008, Verein für Socialpolitik und Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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