What Determines Research Output of Academic Economists?

This paper looks at the characteristics that explain research productivity in a cross section of academic economists. From a sample of 150 economists, we obtained data on a range of human capital variables, teaching loads and research funding. The results suggest that human capital variables, particularly the grade of honours and the nature and location of the PhD., are especially important in explaining a quality-weighted research output measure. Teaching loads are also significant. In particular, we find that a 10 per cent increase in the number of teaching hours may reduce research output by as much as 20 per cent, whereas a 10 per cent increase in the number of grants held per year may raise output per year by as much as 15 per cent.     

The Position of Women in UK Academic Economics

This paper reports the results of the Royal Economic Society Women's Committee 1998 survey on the gender balance in UK academic economics. In 1998, female representation was 4%fessors, 11% of senior lecturers or readers, 17% of permanent lecturers, 28% of fixed term lecturers, and 33% of PhD/research students. The main growth in female representation since 1996 has been in fixed term lectureships and in PhD/research students (a 5 percentage point increase for each). We suggest reasons for the low representation of women in academic economics, and also argue that it is a cause for concern.     

AN EVALUATION OF THE GREEK UNIVERSITIES’ ECONOMICS DEPARTMENTS

This study provides a ranking of Economics Departments of Greek universities. Contrary to the existing literature, we look directly at the citations of the faculty members as a measure of academic performance and avoid the classification of journals. Additionally, the country of the PhD studies was found to be a significant variable that can explain the productivity of Greek economists. PhD holders from US and UK universities are characterized by higher productivity compared to those from other countries.     

The relationship between athletic participation and academic performance: evidence from NCAA Division III

This paper examines athletes' grades and graduation rates at an NCAA Division III institution. Thirty-seven per cent of all college athletes compete in Division III, yet this group has received little attention in the literature. Nontransfer student-athletes have higher GPAs than nonathletes, while transfer student-athletes have grades similar to nonathletes. Graduation rates are higher for athletes. Thus, athletic participation does not impair students' academic performance.     

EFFECTS OF A CHILD'S DISABILITY ON AFFECTED FEMALE'S LABOUR SUPPLY IN AUSTRALIA

Australia has experienced a growing rate of child disability, with the rate of 3.7 per cent in 1998 increasing to 4.3 per cent in 2003 for children aged under four years and from 9.5 per cent to 10 per cent for children aged five to 14 years in the same period. However, surprisingly no study has examined the economic effects of child disability in the Australian context. This paper attempts to quantify the link between a child's disability and the work behaviour of the female in the affected family. Our findings provide empirical justifications for the current policy linking the severity level of child disability to the assessment of eligibility for Carer Payment (Child). We also found that child disability has different impacts on the labour market activities of married women and non‐married women. It appears that child disability imposes a greater hardship on non‐married women than on married women in terms of work choice decision. Once non‐married women manage to enter the labour force, they may have to stay on to work as usual even if they have a disabled child, because they may not have other family members to turn to for help as married women do.     

Gender Inequality in the Provision of Employer-Supported Education

Abstract
Only 27 per cent of females compared with 51 per cent of males undertaking programs of education in Australia do so with financial or other support from their employer. Using data from the How Workers Get Their Training, Australia 1989 survey, an analysis of this differential is undertaken by investigating the effects of dependent children and by controlling for differences in other characteristics between males and females. Although after controlling for these differences the absolute difference between males and females was small, 3.5 percentage points, the estimated bias in favour of males accounts for over 80 per cent of this differential; that is, less than 20 per cent of the differential can be accounted for by differences in male and female characteristics .     

Incentives to Work: Replacement Ratios and the Cost of Job Loss among Indigenous Australians

The relationship between the social welfare system and employment incentives has received considerable attention in the literature. This paper uses data from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Survey to consider these issues for indigenous Australians. Two measures are calculated: the replacement ratio which measures the expected gains from employment for those not in work; and the cost of job loss which measures the expected costsof becoming unemployed for those in employment. The estimates presented here show that the replacement ratio is higher for females than males and for those in a married or de facto relationship compared with single people. About 5 per cent of single males and females could expect a higher income from social security than from non-Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP)scheme employment. Among those with dependent partners 24 per cent of males and 40 per cent of females looking for work could expect a higher income from social security than from non-CDEP employment. The estimates of the cost of job loss, which include the effects of the duration of unemployment and the replacementratio, show a high cost for some indigenous Australians because of their expected longer duration of unemployment.     

Determinants of Household Weatlh: Assets of Divorcing Couples in Australia

Recent reviews indicate that research on wealth in Australia has been limited by a lack of reliable data. The Economic Consequences of Marital Breakdown Survey containing data on the wealth of couples about to divorce, and items from the National Social Science Survey, provide new data for analysis. Shares of net wealth of housing (55 per cent) and superannuation (1 4 per cent) are comparable to those in previous studies. A 'wealth function' was developed taking account of age, gender, years of schooling and further education. There was a 2.6 per cent gain for each year of age and a decumulation of assets after age 58 years. Each year of schooling adds another 10 per cent to net wealth. There is a 16 per cent gain for those who have undertaken some further education after completing school. Some 22 per cent of adult Australians report ever receiving an inheritance. This new information begins to provide some of the answers on 'how' and, by inference, 'why' Australian households save.     

The Dynamics of Public Housing Tenure in Australia

The analysis in this paper presents evidence on the behaviour of tenants in public housing in Australia. Using a unique administrative dataset for West Australia, we identify the nature of spells in public housing and the determinants of the length of those spells. Our results indicate that lone parents and single individuals experience longer spells in public housing compared with couple households. We find that an increase in the market rent of a property in the order of $100 per month reduces the hazard out of public housing by between 17 per cent (lone parents) and 10 per cent (couples).     

Union Wage Effects and the Probability of Union Membership*

This paper uses Lee's (1978) model to determine the wage gains associated with trade union membership and the reasons individuals join trade unions in Australia The data are derived from the 1984 Australian National Social Science Survey. A major conclusion is that unions secure a 17.22 per cent wage gain for their members, other things the same. This expected wage premium is shown to have an important positive impact upon the union membership decision. The welfare loss associated with the union wage premium is argued to be relatively minor about one half of one per cent of gross domestic product     

Gender Differences in Research Patterns Among PhD Economists

This study is based on a 1996 survey of PhD economists working in the academic and nonacademic sectors since 1989. Despite a raw gender difference in all types of research output, the male dummy variable proves statistically significant in predicting only one publication measure. In a full sample and faculty subsample, number of years since receipt of PhD, publication in a refereed journal as a graduate student, and the total number of presentations made in professional forums were consistently, positively related to research productivity. The importance of other independent variables varies by research output. Typically unavailable variables such as workload, time use, submissions data, and family circumstances are also examined.     

Empirical determinants of physician incomes — Evidence from Canadian data

This paper makes use of the fact that the stock of medical manpower in Canada is institutionally and exogenously determined in order to develop a model predicting physician average net income. An econometric evaluation of this model on a sample involving Canada's ten provinces during 1968–1982 suggests that a one per cent increase in physician fees increases physician average net income by 0.70 per cent, and a one per cent increase in the physician to population ratio reduces average net income by 0.62 per cent. In both cases, the elasticities are less than unity because the supply function for an individual physician is backward bending — on average, a Canadian physician reduces his hours worked by an amount between 0.17 and 0.50 per cent (95 per cent confidence interval) if his real wage rate is increased by one per cent.     

Financial Returns and Price Determinants in the Australian Art Market, 1973–2003*

In this study, 37 605 paintings by 60 well-known Australian artists sold at auction over the period 1973–2003 are used to construct a hedonic price index. The attributes included in the hedonic regression model include the name and living status of the artist, the size and medium of the painting and the auction house and year in which the painting was sold. The resulting index indicates that returns on Australian fine-art averaged 7 per cent over the period with a standard deviation of 16 per cent. The hedonic regression model also captures the willingness to pay for perceived attributes in the artwork, and this shows that works by McCubbin, Gascoigne, Thomas and Preston and other artists deceased at the time of auction, works executed in oils or acrylic, and those auctioned by Sotheby's or Christie's are associated with higher prices.     

Why is There a Graduate Earnings Premium for Students From Independent Schools?

We examine the determinants of occupational earnings of UK 1993 graduates and focus on the influence of the type of school the graduate attended prior to university entrance. For data reasons, we restrict attention to graduates who attended school in England. We estimate that, on average, a male (female) graduate who attended an Independent school receives an earnings premium of 3.1 per cent (3.4 per cent) over and above the earnings of a graduate who attended an LEA school, ceteris paribus . We also find considerable variation across different Independent schools in the size of the graduate earnings premium, especially for males, and show that in the case of males the premium increases with the level of school fees, but is not statistically related to measures of school–level average academic performance.     

Reviewers for Volume 41

The authors document the types of undergraduate colleges and universities attended by those who earned a doctorate in economics from an American university from 1966 through 2003. They examine relationships between type of undergraduate institution and attrition and time-to-degree in PhD programs. The total number of new economics PhDs awarded to U.S. citizens has declined precipitously over the past 30 years. Concurrently, the number of new economics doctorates who hold undergraduate degrees from U.S. universities has fallen by half, from a high of about 800 in 1972 to about 400 in 2003. Among those who have earned undergraduate degrees from American institutions, the mix of schools attended by the doctorates has remained relatively stable, with about 55 percent of those who earn a PhD in economics each year holding their bachelor's degree from a university that offers a PhD in economics and a bit more than 10 percent holding a bachelors degree from a selective liberal arts college. Currently, 18 of the 25 American undergraduate institutions that send the largest percentage of their graduating classes on to earn a PhD in economics are liberal arts colleges. Graduates of liberal arts colleges also have shorter time-to-degree and higher verbal Graduate Record Exam (GRE) scores than other economics PhD students.     

THE DISTRIBUTION OF YUGOSLAVIA'S NATIONAL INCOME BY SOCIAL CLASSES IN 1938

This paper presents the results of an investigation of the distribution of Yugoslavia's national income by social classes in 1938. The population in mid-1938 was apportioned among social classes as follows: proletariat 34.6 per cent, middle classes 59.2 per cent, bourgeoisie 5.3 per cent, 0.9 per cent unallocated. About three-quarters of the population was rural. The proletariat amounted to 5.2 million persons, of which 3 million were peasants living on dwarf holdings and 2.2 million were rural and urban wage earners. Unemployment in the non-agricultural sector was 10 per cent; if the agricultural sector is added, overall un- and under-employment amounted to 31 per cent. The bourgeoisie consisted of 0.8 million persons, of which two-fifths were rich peasants. Of the 9 million persons in the middle classes, 7 million were peasants with small and medium holdings. The remainder were mainly minor entrepreneurs in the non-agricultural sector. The proletariat accounted for 35 per cent of total population but only 18 per cent of aggregate income, whereas the bourgeoisie with 5 per cent of the population received 26 per cent of aggregate income. The distribution of income among the various groups of the non-agricultural population was more unequal than among the groups of the agricultural population. Estimates are preesented of the distribution of income by various types and sources, for agricultural and non-agricultural population, together with income per capita, average earnings per employed worker, labor productivity, and capital intensity, the last by industrial branches as well as social classes.     

Germany's New Insider Law: The Empirical Evidence after the First Year

Abstract. This paper investigates insider trading activities in German stocks during the first year following implementation of the new Insider Law on 1 July 2002. It can be observed that insiders act as contrarian investors. They buy stocks after prices have fallen and sell stocks after prices have risen. In general, insider trades are very profitable. A typical stock purchased by an insider yields an abnormal return of almost 3 per cent during the 25 days following the transaction. In contrast, a typical stock that has been sold by insiders achieves an abnormal return of nearly −3 per cent over the same time period. Outsiders who copy the transactions of insiders can achieve nearly the same abnormal returns. Abnormal returns remain substantial even after transaction costs. The results suggest that prices of stocks in which insiders trade do not seem to be semi-strong efficient.     

Flattening the Effective Marginal Tax Rate Structure in Australia: Policy Simulations Using the Melbourne Institute Tax and Transfer Simulator

This article uses the Melbourne Institute Tax and Transfer Simulator to examine the effects of a reduction in the means‐tested benefit taper, or withdrawal, rates in Australia to 30 per cent. That is, all taper rates of 50 per cent and 70 per cent in the March 1998 benefit system are reduced to 30 per cent, while leaving all basic benefit levels unchanged. This change is therefore expected to ‘flatten’ the tax structure by reducing the high marginal tax rates applying to those with relatively low incomes and increasing the marginal tax rates of medium incomes. Simulations in which all individuals are assumed to remain at their pre‐reform labour supply levels are compared with behavioural simulations in which the majority of individuals are free to adjust the number of hours worked. The results reflect only the supply side of the labour market. The database used is the 1997‐98 Survey of Income and Housing Costs, so that weekly incomes are based on the financial year 1997‐98. The comparison shows that, for sole parents, accounting for behavioural effects of the reform results in a lower estimated expenditure for government, whereas for couples, accounting for behavioural effects results in a higher estimated expenditure.     

Ranking and clustering of the faculties of commerce research performance in Australia

There is a growing policy focus in Australian higher education on quantitative research performance assessment. However, most of the analysis has addressed aggregate performance at the institutional level, an approach inconsistent with recent policy emphasis on diversity among universities and one that ignores performance variations across disciplines. Using averaged and all available data for 2000–2004, cluster analysis is used to classify Australian Commerce Faculties into groups that exhibit similar research performance, measured by publication, PhD completion and secured competitive research grant funding. We also use factor analysis to generate full-multidimensional rankings within the resulting two or three clusters. It is found that in terms of total research output, with the exception of Adelaide all the Group of 8 (Go8) members plus University of Technology, Sydney and Griffith always belong to ‘Clusters A’. However, when research performance is expressed in per academic staff terms, an additional 11 universities join this same cluster. Our results additionally show that eight Australian faculties of Commerce not only possess low total research output but their per capita performance is also poor.