A note on the relative productivity drivers of economists: a probit/logit approach for six European countries

Abstract

We examine the drivers of research performance of 1431 economists from six European countries. Data from the Scopus database are collected. We compare the relative performance of economists from three northern European countries: Belgium, Denmark and Germany with three from the south: Greece, Italy and Portugal. Relative performance is measured as the deviation from the country average in both citations and papers. The dependent variables take the value of 1 if the productivity of the researcher is above the country average and 0 if it is below. Probit/logit analysis is employed and marginal effects are estimated to examine the significance of factors like the country of their PhD studies, gender and inbreeding at the national level. A US PhD or a German PhD affects negatively the relative productivity of German economists. Inbreeding at the national level (locally trained economists) reduces productivity among Greek, Italian and Portuguese economists. Gender is significant in the case of Denmark, Germany and Italy, but it does not affect productivity in Belgium, Greece and Portugal.