The Benefits of Being Economics Professor A (and not Z)

Alphabetic name ordering on multi-authored academic papers, which is the conven-tion in the economics discipline and various other disciplines, is to the advantage of people whose last name initials are placed early in the alphabet. As it turns out, Pro-fessor A, who has been a first author more often than Professor Z, will have publi-shed more articles and experienced a faster growth rate over the course of her ca-reer as a result of reputation and visibility. Moreover, authors know that name orde-ring matters and indeed take ordering seriously: Several characteristics of an author group composition determine the decision to deviate from the default alphabetic na-me order to a significant extent...