What Makes an Economic Job Market Star: Tours and Rumors

Katrina Q. Wang, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Qianxun Feng, University of Chicago

Reputation has emerged as a challenging concept in organizational research. The existing literature underscores the potential benefits provided by reputation in resource allocation and knowledge. However, when disproportionate credit is given to someone already prominent, the Matthew effect is triggered. When individuals with comparable abilities are in the job market, does this phenomenon still occur? Our paper contributes to this line of research by investigating the mechanisms through which reputation influences the later academic careers of young academic economists, employing matched pair analysis. We examine the presenters invited by the “REStud Tour” from 1995 to 2006. “REStud” is the abbreviation for the Review of Economic Studies, a top-5 (tier-1) journal in the field of economics. This tour has established itself as a prestigious conference for exceptional candidates in the economic job market to present their research, receiving specific invitations from the conference committee. Based on our manually collected and matched datasets, our findings indicate that REStud candidates do not exhibit a significant advantage in terms of total publications and citations from other people. However, they do show a significantly higher publication volume in tier-1 journals in economics. Additionally, we delve into the rumors circulating on the Economic Job Market Rumors (EJMR) forum. These rumors provide a valuable mediator for assessing the reputation established before and during tours.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 172. Making Reputations: Credentials, Metrics and Stratification in Organizational Fields