According to a new paper from the Centre for Economic Policy Research, the answer is (a robust) ‘yes’. We document appearance effects in the economics profession. Using unique data on PhD graduates from ten of the top economics departments in the United States we test whether more attractive individuals are more likely to succeed. We […]
Tag: academia
“Can’t imagine why more people don’t study…”
Professor Stephanie Carvin remarks (on Twitter): “Can’t imagine why more people don’t study Public Poli…..Zzzzzzzz“. Professor Carvin said this upon reading the abstract to the study “Understanding and influencing the policy process,” by Christopher M. Weible , Tanya Heikkila, Peter deLeon, and Paul A. Sabatier, published in the March 2012 issue (volume 45, number 1) of the journal […]
Fake impact factor factories
We’ve all heard about nefarious corporations employing linkfarms (or cyber-robots) to artificially bump-up their Facebook ‘likes’ – or nogoodnik book publishers who pay fake reviewers to positively puff up their online book reviews – but surely the earnest and scholarly world of academic journal publishing is above that sort of thing? Maybe think again. A […]
Fruit bat award awakens memories in Ireland
The Irish newspaper The Independent reports, in the wake of the 2010 Ig Nobel Biology Prize being awarded to the scientists who documented fellatio in fruit bats, on allegedly-sordid doings in the city of Cork: Notorious fruit bat research wins ‘Ig Nobel’ prize AN ACADEMIC paper about oral sex among fruit bats — which sparked […]
Academic fossilisation alert
“The practice of having Ph.D. graduates employed by the university that trained them, commonly called ‘academic inbreeding’ has long been suspected to be damaging to scholarly practices and achievement,” says this report: But, until recently, precise details regarding the levels of possible damage have not been formally quantified. Progress has been made, however, by a […]