Regional mobility of economists: An extension

We extend Davis and Patterson’s analysis of the incidence and determinants of regional mobility of Ph.D. economists. By exploiting previously collected data, we identify the patterns of regional mobility not only at the point of entry into the labor market for economists who received their doctoral degree in 1968 but also the net mobility of these economists over a 25-year period. The net effects of regional mobility decisions made between graduation in 1968 and year-25 employment in 1993, and between initial professional employment in 1969 and year-25 employment in 1993, are analyzed. Our results suggest that many economists demonstrate a propensity to“nest“ in their degree and first-job regions of employment and that those employed in government service and those with a greater diversity of work experience are more likely to migrate across regions during their careers.     

A psychological, attitudinal and professional profile of Irish economists

This paper provides the first psychological and attitudinal profile of the Irish economics profession. The aspects covered fall into three broad categories: the first category relates to the attitudes of the respondents to issues relating to the economy and the role of government; the second set seeks responses regarding perceptions of the economics profession and professional economists in Ireland; the third set of questions are drawn from various international survey programmes and survey social, political, ethical and psychological attributes and attitudes. The results display a picture of a group who believe their discipline to be relevant to policy and society, who are outward looking in terms of international collaboration, who perceive the discipline to be somewhat stale and who desire a greater focus on interdisciplinary work.     

Productivity of highly skilled immigrants: economists in the postwar period

Prior work finds declining immigrant quality in the postwar period that is linked to source-country and skill-composition changes associated with the 1965 Immigration Act. This paper uses a unique panel of foreign- and native-born American Economic Association members to show that the highly skilled experienced a similar shift away from European migrants toward those from Asia. However, the findings do not indicate that this change in source-country composition has been accompanied by a decline in quality; rather, the most recent cohorts of foreign-born economists appear to be more productive than their native counterparts.     

The economists and the primitive societies: A critique of economic imperialism

The extension of economics to topics that lie outside its classical domain is known as ‘economic imperialism’. But there are territories of social science that persist to be largely intractable using the postulates of economic theory: the anthropological subject of primitive societies represents one such territory. This paper describes and discusses the representation of primitive societies by economists from the proto-imperialist model of Smith to the imperialist Posner's model. It maintains that (a) the economists’ attempt at interpretation is highly unsatisfactory and (b) it is possible to offer a different representation of the primitive societies, one more coherent with the anthropological and ethnographical data, and able to show the inadequacy and insubstantiality of many economic categories when applied to those societies.     

The evolutionary neuroscience of human reciprocal sociality: A basic outline for economists

MacLean's tri-level concept of the human brain is the foundational concept for a comprehensive understanding of human sociality from the standpoint of physiology and medicine. This conceptual platform is basic to any proper contextualization of evolutionary psychiatry, as MacLean essentially describes two opposing archetypal neuromental circuitries upon which our sociality is based. It is important that the social sciences, notably economics, achieve more comprehensive, reliable and valid progress. Integration of evolutionary behavioral neuroscience is especially pertinent as deficiencies of the received model – a hyper-rational, self-interested homo economicus – are increasingly evident.In particular, the MacLeanian model is re-emerging as the principal basis for an evolutionary psychology with meaningful attention to both genes and brains. This evolutionary psychology is, in turn, the most naturalistic and accurate formulation for reciprocity and exchange behavior of social species, notably humans. As such, evolutionary neuroscience is of direct and increasing pertinence to economics generally and especially socioeconomics. This paper is meant to cogently summarize key elements to foster greater cross-inquiries between evolutionary neuroscience and economics.     

A visibility analysis of the scientific production of Ukrainian economists: 1969-94

Despite the prestigious contributions of Ukrainian economists in the past, most particularly with Mikhaı̈l Tuhan-Baranovsky and even more so with Eugen Slutsky, there is no single indication of the scientific production of contemporary economists either in Ukraine or in the Diaspora. This study attempts to fill that gap by using the 1969-3/1995 EconLit data-base to establish the visibility of all identified economists with Ukrainian descent active in academic, governmental or private areas. The members of the Editorial Board and the Advisory Board of the Ukrainian Economic Review were also examined in order to provide reference to a benchmark group. The method of analysis applied the usual norms of measurement, taking into account the co-authorship factor to adjust for effective productivity in refereed journals.     

Is there consensus among American labor economists? Survey results on forty propositions

I examine whether consensus exists among American labor economists on forty propositions by analyzing responses to a questionnaire mailed to 193 randomly selected labor economists who are members of the American Economic Association. The questions address many of the important debates in labor economics. The answers show consensus on a number of issues, including the belief that minimum wage laws decrease employment, and a rejection of comparable worth’s merits. However, there is substantial disagreement about the impact of unions, the amount of discrimination in the labor market, the trend of average real wages, and several other topics. For comments and advice I thank Charles Brown, Lee Craig, Price Fshback, Donald Frey, Robert Margo, Joshua Rosenbloom, and Andrew Yates. Special thanks go to those who generously gave their time to complete the questionnaire.     

Efficiency versus fairness: The evaluation of labor market policies by economists and laypeople

The present study examines the criteria used by economic laypeople (N = 380 German citizens) and economists (N = 80 professors or postgraduates in economics) in judging reform measures as illustrated by policies of governmental labor market intervention policies. Results reveal substantial differences between economists and laypeople. Most laypersons favored labor market interventions and regarded them as both, efficient and fair. In contrast, most economists opposed labor market interventions and regarded them as both, inefficient and unfair. Using structural equation modelling we further show that the relative importance of efficiency and fairness differs between both groups. While economists base the acceptance of a certain reform measure mainly on its perceived efficiency, laypersons mainly focus on its perceived fairness. Theoretical and practical implications of our results are discussed.     

Palestinian labour mobility

"Following an overview of demographic and migratory trends since the late 1960s, the article examines labour force participation and analyses the distribution of Palestinian workers between the three labour markets in which they participate: the domestic market of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Israeli market and the Arab market, consisting chiefly of Jordan and the oil-rich Arab states. Since 1982 there has been a contraction of employment opportunities for Palestinians in the latter two labour markets. Domestic job creation is one of the main tasks confronting the Palestinian administration to be set up under the 1993 Israel/PLO agreement."     

Ethical indices of income mobility

Ethical indices of income mobility measure the change in welfare resulting from mobility. The concept of mobility we explore consists of a welfare comparison between the actual time path of the income distribution with a hypothetical time path obtained by supposing that starting from the actual first-period distribution, the remaining income receipts exhibit complete immobility.     

Who is on the rise in Austria: Wage mobility and mobility risk

In this paper we investigate earnings mobility in Austria from the angle of individual persons. Earnings mobility over time has two aspects: Positional changes and the volatility of earnings over time. Whereas the further is a positive outcome, more volatility as such can be seen as negative. We use Austrian data from tax authorities to find out how population characteristics are related to these two concepts of earnings mobility. Our main results concern initial positions: The higher up you are at the beginning, the more difficult is further positional advancement, moreover, in terms of volatility we see that those in the lowest quantiles of the earnings distribution face the highest volatility of earnings positions over time. *Rudolf Winter-Ebmer is also associated with CEPR, London and IZA, Bonn.