Competition in Research Activity among Economic Departments: Evidence by Negative Spatial Autocorrelation

Abstract

Despite the prevalence of both competitive forces and patterns of collaboration within academic communities, studies on research productivity generally treat universities as independent entities. By exploring the research productivity of all academic economists employed at 81 universities and 17 economic research institutes in Austria, Germany, and German‐speaking Switzerland, this study finds that a research unit's productivity negatively depends on that of neighboring research units weighted by inverse distances. This significant and exemplary robust negative relationship is compatible with the notion of competition for priority of discovery among individual researchers and the universities that employ them, and with the notion that the willingness to relocate decreases with distance. In addition, the empirical results support the hypotheses that collaboration and that the existence of economies of scale increase research productivity. A pesar de la existencia de tanto fuerzas de competencia como de patrones de colaboración dentro de la comunidad académica, los estudios sobre la productividad de investigación tratan por lo general a las universidades como entidades independientes. El presente estudio explora la productividad de investigación de todos los economistas académicos empleados en 81 universidades y 17 institutos de investigación económica en Austria, Alemania y Suiza germano‐parlante, y concluye que la productividad de una unidad de investigación depende negativamente de la productividad de las unidades vecinas ponderada por las distancias inversas que las separan. Esta relación negativa es robusta, significativa y emblemática, lo cual concuerda con el concepto de competencia por prioridad de descubrimiento (priority of discovery) entre investigadores individuales y entre las universidades que los emplean. Así mismo concuerda con la idea de que la voluntad de desplazarse disminuye con la distancia. Adicionalmente, los resultados empíricos de este estudio apoyan la hipótesis de que la colaboración y la presencia de economías de escala tienen un efecto positivo sobre (incrementan) la productividad de investigación. 尽管对学术团体的研究主要针对竞争力和合作模式，但在研究科研生产率时，大学仍被视为独立的实体。本文通过调查奥地利、德国和瑞士德语区的81所高校和17个经济研究单位经济学家的研究产出率，研究发现一个研究单位的产出效率高低负依赖于反距离加权相邻研究单位的研究产出率。这种重要且典型稳健的负相关关系与个人研究者及其所在大学关于发现优先权的竞争观念相符，同时也与研究者的调动意愿因距离增加而减少的情况相一致。此外，经验结果也支持了合作和规模经济的存在能提高研究产出率的假设。

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