The effect of spatial mobility and other factors on academic productivity : some evidence from a set of highly productive economists

This paper analyzes a sample of economists from two sources: faculty members working in2007 in a selection of the 81 top Economics departments in the world, and Fellows of the Econometric Society active at that date but working elsewhere in other institutions. Productivity is measured in terms of a quality index that weights the publications of each individual in four journal equivalent classes. Consider the partition of any set into the following three groups: those who study and work in the same country (stayers), those who study the Ph.D. abroad but come back to the country where they obtained a first degree (brain circulation), and those who complete their education at home but move abroad after the Ph.D., plus those who leave their country to study the Ph.D. and remain abroad in 2007 (two different forms of brain drain). From the point of view of a country or a geographical area, there are three types of movers: brain circulation, brain drain,and migrants constituting a brain gain for the country or the geographical area in question. We investigate the following four issues. (1) and (2). Controlling for demographic and career variables,we study the productivity of movers versus stayers for the individuals working in 2007 in the U.S. or in the EU. (3) The potential deleterious effect of academic in breeding practices on researchers' productivity. (4) The existence of productivity differences among economists from different countries.