We analyze the empirical relationship between journal prices, their quality measured by their citation counts, their age, as well as conduct of publishers. The database covers 22 scientific fields and more than 2,600 of among the most highly reputed and cited journals in 2003. We show that (a)...

The role of experts is dramatically increasing in our societies, where sorting information about quality is becoming more and more difficult. This paper looks at expertise in the arts (movies, novels and musical interpretation) and shows that expert opinion given shortly after the work has been...

In this paper, the authors show that an indirect approach, based on mathematical programming, can be followed to evaluate the shadow wage rate and the profitabilty of various production alternatives. The idea is applied to a typical autarkic farm of the intertropical Sahelian region. Copyright...

European countries in which universities rely on public funding increasingly follow the lead of the United Kingdom and run Research Assessment Exercises. Given the subjective nature of such evaluations, some scientists prefer verifiable measures such as citation counts. This, however, also is...

In their paper on price comovements of paintings, Ginsburgh and Jeanfils show that in three important markets (London, Paris and New York), prices of well-known and lesser known painters ''move together'' (are cointegrated). They conclude that therefore, an investor may be indifferent between...

We address the question of the quality of movies produced between 1950 and 1970. A first outcome of our analysis is that the quality assessments made during the Cannes Festival, and to a lesser degree, by the U.S. Academy are short-lasting. In contrast to this, consumers seem consistent over...

This paper examines three situations in which distances between languages, genes, and cultures matter. The first is concerned with the determinants that govern the learning of foreign languages. One of these is the “difficulty” of the foreign language, represented by the distance between the...

We analyse the welfare consequences of an increase in the commissions charged by intermediaries in auction markets. We argue that while commissions are similar to taxes imposed on buyers and sellers the question of incidence deserves a new treatment in auction markets. We show that an increase...

General equilibrium and AGE modeling are both active fields of research. Yet the applied model builder often finds the style of theoretical papers inaccessible, while the theoretician hardly recognizes the concepts used in the equations of applied models. The Structure of Applied General...