A new study claims to aim at rendering less copious the many family ties in Italian academia. The study is:
“Measuring Nepotism through Shared Last Names: The Case of Italian Academia,” Stefano Allesina [pictured here], PLoS ONE, 6(8): e21160. 2011. (Thanks to investigator Rudy Fuller for bringing this to our attention.) The author, at the University of Chicago, reports:
“Nepotistic practices are detrimental for academia. Here I show how disciplines with a high likelihood of nepotism can be detected using standard statistical techniques based on shared last names among professors. As an example, I analyze the set of all 61,340 Italian academics. I find that nepotism is prominent in Italy, with particular disciplinary sectors being detected as especially problematic. Out of 28 disciplines, 9 – accounting for more than half of Italian professors – display a significant paucity of last names. Moreover, in most disciplines a clear north-south trend emerges, with likelihood of nepotism increasing with latitude. Even accounting for the geographic clustering of last names, I find that for many disciplines the probability of name-sharing is boosted when professors work in the same institution or sub-discipline. Using these techniques policy makers can target cuts and funding in order to promote fair practices.”
BONUS: At least according to the results of the U Chicago web site people directory, Professor Allesina is the only Allesina at the University of Chicago.