This paper examines the small world hypothesis. The first part of the paper presents empirical evidence on the evolution of a particular world: the world of journal publishing economists during the period 1970-2000. We find that in the 1970's the world of economics was a collection of islands,...

I ask generally whether a country can benefit from the temporary importation of human capital, and specifically whether a program that attracts large groups of academic visitors to a distant country benefits it by generating additional scholarly research on local issues. Using the list of...

The social, economic, and political parallels with Ancient Rome are perhaps too numerous to include them all in this brief study. However, several characteristics identified by MacMullen seemed to accurately describe present conditions throughout the United States of America especially the...

This paper treats the structure of economic theory as a product of spontaneously ordered relationships among theorists in a setting where different institutional frameworks can govern those relationships. Those differences generate different selection principles among economic theories and,...

Learned societies commonly carry out selection processes to add new fellows to an existing fellowship. Criteria vary across societies but are typically based on subjective judgments concerning the merit of individuals who are nominated for fellowships. These subjective assessments may be made by...