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This paper examines how a reputation-seeking academic economist allocates his time between research and nonresearch activities to publish papers in domestic and international journals. In equilibrium there is a trade-off between domestic and international publications. One implication is that the observed differences in academic productivity between American and European economists reflected by rankings can be misleading. The model allows for the existence of productive and efficient scholars even when their names do not appear in the rankings. The reason is that some scholars are publishing in domestic rather than in international journals, in accordance with the incentives in their home countries.

There is a long tradition in economics in measuring the output of scholars and departments.1 These measures are usually based on publications in peer-reviewed international journals and/or in citations.2 The available empirical evidence provides a positive relationship between resources for research and ranking position (e.g., Koshal et al., 1996, Fox and Milbourne, 1999 and Thursby, 2000), so it is no surprise that these rankings are used to attract grants. However, rankings based on publications and citations show that North American (especially from the US) academic economists perform much better than others. Frey and Pommerehne (1988), for example, using the number of citations in the Social Science Citation Index over the period 1972–1983, show that the US and Canada provide 72% of all eminent living economists, and only 25% are Europeans.3 According to Frey and Eichenberger, 1992 and Frey and Eichenberger, 1993 the significant differences in academic productivity are due to differences in the academic markets in the US and Europe. They argue that the US market is bigger and more competitive and homogeneous than the European market. Moreover, job mobility is almost absent in European markets. This paper explores another possible explanation – not necessarily separated from the labor markets hypothesis outlined above – for the observed differences. It is argued that economists outside the US have incentives to publish in domestic journals to maximize their value in their respective home countries. The domestic production is seldom captured by rankings, since the rankings take into account international journals, and most of these international journals are Americans or have as editors American economists (see Hodgson and Rothman, 1999). Therefore, there are productive economists outside the US – in that they publish their academic output in peer-reviewed journals – but their effort is not reflected in the rankings because they are publishing in domestic, rather than international journals.4 The main hypothesis of this paper is that productive scholars are reputation-seekers in their respective countries. Given that, other things being equal, a better reputation allows the academic economist to profit from his expertise by attracting more sources of income. The point of interest here is to analyze how this reputation-seeking behavior affects the choice of the scholar in publishing internally or externally. The scholar has to establish himself as a high profile academic to gain some respect among peers and to build up his reputation in academia. The quickest way to gain reputation in academia is by publishing in top journals of the area which, in the present context, are represented by international journals. Another way is by obtaining a Ph.D. degree in a first rank international university. After achieving some respectability in academia, the scholar starts to build his reputation outside academia [where additional sources of income lie]. He directs his focus to domestic journals to promote himself in the home country. Thus the scholar has incentives to publish in domestic and international journals.5 The relevant issue is how the scholar balances his efforts between academic and domestic audience. The key question of our investigation is whether a trade-off exists between both objectives. It is expected that an efficient scholar finds himself in a position of such a trade-off. According to our argument, he has incentives to publish in domestic and international journals, however his time and other resources are limited. If resources are free he will increase both publications, because they bring him more satisfaction, reputation and income. So, one must expect that an efficient academic will increase both types of publications until his resources are fully employed. That is, to the point at which an increase in publications in international journal trade-off publications in domestic journals, and vice versa. The existence of a trade-off between publications in domestic and international journals illustrates the idea that there can be productive and efficient economists whose names do not appear in international productivity rankings of the profession. This occurs because such economists are publishing in domestic journals, and achieving other types of professional targets given by the incentives in their home countries. This idea helps to explain the observed differences in academic productivity between American and European economists. The paper is organized as follows. The next section presents the basic model. The qualitative analysis of the model appears in section three. Section four uses the model to explain the observed differences in academic productivity between American and European economists. The concluding remarks follow in section five.

The productivity rankings show a remarkable difference in the performance of American and European economists. It appears that American economists are more productive than their European counterparts. This paper proposes an explanation for the observed differences. It is argued that economists outside the US have incentives to publish in domestic journals (that are not accounted for in these rankings) to maximize their value in their respective home countries. That is, economists outside the US can be productive – in the sense they publish their academic output in peer-reviewed journals – but their effort is not reflected in the rankings because they are publishing in domestic, rather than international, journals. The central hypothesis of this paper is that productive scholars are reputation-seekers in their respective countries. Given that a better reputation, ceteris paribus, allows the academic economist to profit from his expertise by attracting more sources of income. The paper analyzes how this reputation-seeking behavior affects the choice of the scholar in publishing domestically or internationally. The scholar has to establish himself by gaining reputation in academia and outside academia. In order to gain a reputation in academia he has to publish in the top journals in the field (given by the international publications). Reputation outside academia is related to publications in domestic journals. Thus the scholar has incentives to publish in domestic and international journals. Considering that his time and other resources are limited, one must expect that an efficient academic will increase both types of publications until his resources are fully employed. At this point an increase in publications in international journals trade-off publications in domestic journals, and vice versa. The paper presents a model in which a reputation-seeking academic economist decides how to allocate his time between research and nonresearch activities in order to publish papers in domestic and international journals. A trade-off between domestic and international publications is derived as the optimal equilibrium of the model. The combination of the trade-off between domestic and international publications with the academic labor market characteristics in the US and Europe, leads to the result that the observed differences in productivity reflected by the rankings can be misleading. That is, the model allows for the existence of productive and efficient scholars even in the case their names do not appear in the rankings. The reason is that some scholars are publishing in domestic rather than in international journals, which is consistent with the incentives they face in their home countries.