Research and Higher Education in Economics: Can We Deliver the Lisbon Objectives?

Abstract

Can European economics become “the most dynamic and competitive in the world”? Using readily accessible data, this paper documents the following aspects. (i) Today, the United States outperforms Europe by a factor of the order of 3, with no clear trend; the Lisbon goal is not in sight. (ii) Europe is not homogeneous; the United Kingdom and the small countries in north central Europe significantly outperform the Big 4 continental countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain); we conclude that the Big 4 should accept English as the lingua franca of economics and implement major institutional reforms. (iii) Some 35 leading economics departments (a dozen from each of these three areas) account for 75% of Europe's research output. (iv) The concentration of research in leading departments is substantial but not exclusive; it is comparable in Europe and the United States, but leading U.S. departments have incomparably more resources and also benefit from access to an integrated labor market. (v) Few PhD programs are of efficient size, especially in Europe, so further concentration is needed. (vi) Second‐best funding of higher education calls for block grants to efficient programs; in Europe, these should be organized at the EU level. We conclude with a modest proposal ($15 million per year) consisting of block grants to leading departments and to young academic researchers. Our optimistic verdict is that substantial progress toward the Lisbon goal is in sight, but it requires significant departures from current practices. (JEL: I21, I23)

How Should Research Performance Be Measured? A Study of Swedish Economists*

“…As soon as a certain measure is widely used, researchers can be expected to adjust behaviour in order to maximize their output as defined by this measure (Holmström and Milgrom, 1991; Frey and Osterloh, 2006). This tendency is reinforced if universities, departments and research councils use a certain metric when making decisions about hiring, promotion and the allocation of funds (Holcombe, 2004; Drèze and Estevan, 2007; Oswald, 2007). Therefore, the choice of measures is of great importance unless it emerges that the ranking and relative valuation of different researchers and departments is largely invariant with respect to an array of output measures.…”

Topics and Geographical Diffusion of Knowledge in Top Economic Journals

“…These figures remark that several European countries communicate information mainly to national audiences thereby reducing the scope of knowledge circulation and the possibility to compare the scientific production of scholars across countries with a resulting friction in international mobility (Chessa et al ). A similar degree of heterogeneity is found in educational programs: the share of PhD dissertations written in English (1994–2003) varies from 0% at Paris I (ETAPE) to 100% at the Universidad Autonoma of Barcelona and at the European University Institute 100% (Dréze and Estevan )…”

“…European and U.S. universities also exhibit substantial differences in the availability of economic resources for research activities, with a staggering advantage for the United States. For instance, Harvard's annual budget corresponds to the average annual endowment assigned to the European Research Council to promote research in 25 EU countries (Dréze and Estevan ). The U.S. budget advantage together with a private hiring mechanism generate a degree of dynamism and competition that is not replicable in Europe where, in many cases, hiring is still regulated by national public procedures and where incentives (salary and working conditions) to mobility are much lower and often nonnegotiable.…”

Spatial mobility in elite academic institutions in economics: the case of Spain

“…The improvement of Spanish economics institutions in international research rankings during the same period, which has been documented elsewhere(Drèze and Estevan 2007;Ruiz-Castillo 2008), has also been attributed to these governance changes in elite Spanish centers and the availability of increased resources for research.…”

“…Although department effects have been partially controlled for by means of the department of destination's average productivity, Spanish centers may be relatively more attractive to both foreigners and natives in unobserved dimensions. In this respect, there is a valuable literature arguing that the research gap between the USA and the rest of the world in any science can be explained by differences in governance and resources (Ali et al 2007;Aghion et al 2007Aghion et al , 2010Bauwens et al 2008;Van der Ploeg 2008 and, in economics, Drèze andEstevan 2007).…”