Not exactly a surprise – recent research confirms what many in the field already knew
Alma Mat(t)er(s): Determinants of Early
Career Success in Economics by Sascha Baghestanian
and Sergey V. Popov [October 16, 2014]
Abstract:
We study 6000 author-publication observations to investigate
predictors of early career success in six fields of Economics. Concentrating on
top researchers enables us to control for the effects of ability and effort,
and focusing on the start of their careers minimizes distortions from
reputation feedback. Our results reveal that the most important predictor for
early career success is the ranking of an author's PhD granting institution,
followed by his first placement. Our insights suggest that a counterfactual
decrease in the Alma mater of a high ability author, who graduated from a top
10 university, by as little as 10 to 20 ranks, reduces his probability of
getting a top 5 publication significantly by 13 percentage points. Lowering the
ranking of his Alma mater by another 80 ranks decreases his chances of getting
a top publication by a factor of three. Our findings suggest that the Economics
publication market values Alma mater signals, discounting newcomers graduating
from- or working at lower ranked departments.